The ‘Hangbag’ Carry Bag!

IAnD Exclusive

Design Impact Special

By Zoya

Photography: Courtesy the designers

Innovative Hangbag

Did you know over one billion paper shopping bags are used every year and only one per cent end up in the recycle bin? Design students from MIT Pune have come up with an innovative solution that negates our environmental woes and reduces the recycling process too, to a large extent…

Parin Sanghvi, Mohit Singhvi and Shruti Gupta - three budding product designers from the MIT Institute of Design, Pune have designed an interesting shopping bag that can easily be transformed into a hanger back home.

(L-R)Mohit Singhvi, Shruti Gupta and Parin Sanghvi 

Notwithstanding the fact that products made from recycled goods are not easily accepted and put to use by the larger sector of society, the budding designers brainstormed on ‘wacky ideas’ and ‘workable concepts’ that would encourage ‘green behavior’ and perhaps turn the handbag into a significant product beyond its immediate and obvious utility.

Hanging tie

First produced for their college Green Design project, the Hangbag is not only an alternative to the shopping bags that you carry home and discard after using once or twice, but also replaces plastic hangers in your wardrobe.

Hangbag logo

The prototype is crafted out of brown paper and attached to a foldable hanging hook with easy-to-follow instructions printed on it. The thick paper quality gives a sturdy support base to the carry bag. Once folded into a hanger, its arms can be used to hang shirts and coats on, while its jute handles — that now hang below the hanger — can be used to hold lighter clothing accessories like ties and scarves.

Folding process

Keeping the process simple so that there is no specific skill involved in flipping the bag into hanger and vice versa, and given the fact that this would be a mass-manufactured product, the design is being explored with different material, and manufacturing processes to arrive at the most cost-effective solution.

Hanging scarf

It’s a well-thought out and truly innovative design. Eight months since the launch of the design concept; yet, Parin says that appreciation and enquiries are pouring in from out of India rather than from within the domestic sphere. The young students, who are keen to make a success out of this innovative and definitely usable, much-needed concept, are on the lookout for collaborations on various fronts that can take this design to its requisite fruition. 

Interested collabrators may communicate with Parin Sanghvi at parinsanghvi@ymail.com; thehangbagproject@gmail.com