diff --git a/kombu/utils/encoding.py b/kombu/utils/encoding.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..c9e091ac
--- /dev/null
+++ b/kombu/utils/encoding.py
@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+import sys
+import traceback
+
+
+def default_encoding():
+    if sys.platform.startswith("java"):
+        return "utf-8"
+    return sys.getfilesystemencoding()
+
+
+def safe_str(s, errors="replace"):
+    if not isinstance(s, basestring):
+        return safe_repr(s, errors)
+    return _safe_str(s, errors)
+
+
+def _safe_str(s, errors="replace"):
+    encoding = default_encoding()
+    try:
+        if isinstance(s, unicode):
+            return s.encode(encoding, errors)
+        return unicode(s, encoding, errors)
+    except Exception, exc:
+        return "<Unrepresentable %r: %r %r>" % (
+                type(s), exc, "\n".join(traceback.format_stack()))
+
+
+def safe_repr(o, errors="replace"):
+    try:
+        return repr(o)
+    except Exception:
+        return _safe_str(o, errors)