Last week, the Heat announced its home arena had received coveted LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for making the building environmentally friendly. Now the team is taking its efforts a step further by turning its old banners into new products.

The team is partnering with RetroActif, a Pembroke Pines company that takes old banners and turns them into handbags, travel pouches and portfolio folders and sometimes sells them back to the banners’ original owners for corporate events. My colleague Doreen Hemlock wrote a piece about the company that ran last month – you can read it here. See Sun Sentinel photo of company founders Monica and Ziad Shuman with some of their products at left.

After the story ran, Heat officials saw an opportunity to recycle the team and player banners that hang from street poles at AmericanAirlines Arena.

"It's a simple equation of sports plus recycling equals fashion--and the solution is creative, chic and most importantly, it's environmentally responsible," said Lorrie-Ann Diaz, Heat director of marketing communications.

Ziad Shuman said the partnership is the company’s first with a sports team. He said he is waiting for the banners to be delivered. The company has agreed to make carry-all tote bags that will sell for $24 and letter size portfolio folders for $28. Both will be sold at the arena.

“I don’t think they’ll use banners showing faces of guys no longer there, like Shaquille O’Neal,” Shuman said.

I suggested that might be a collector’s item, but Shuman quipped: “We’d have to make a really big bag.”

The bags and folders won’t be ready in time for the playoffs, but the Heat says, look for the new products next season.