Notice anyone tooling around town with a brightly colored handbag that looks like mosquito netting? It probably was mosquito netting – repurposed and for sale at local shops and markets by Ellen Reich.

She started a local company called Three Stone Steps that seeks to offer products that are fairly made and constructed with recycled materials. She said the company is an outcropping of her love of travel and her sense of social justice developed after earning a masters degree in Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The products come from artists around the world and are mostly made in small shops or people’s houses. She says she goes to make sure there’s no sweatshop behind the purse.

In addition to the mosquito netting and garbage bag purses from Cambodia, there are recycled metal bracelets made from old oil drums in Haiti. See all the products on Three Stone Steps site.

Go a local company or product with a green bent? Tell us about it.

Photo courtesy of Three Stone Steps