I recently discovered a company who has taken my addiction to coffee and combined it with my love of reusable bags.

What Rejavanate does is takes the burlap from coffee roasters and turns them into reusable bags. How clever is that?

Working with The ARC (a community based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities) the bags are hand made by individuals with developmental disabilities. It was refreshing to learn about a company that is both environmentally and socially conscious.

According to ReJAVAnate, “800,000 tons of burlap is put into landfills every year.”

By using burlap as the source of material for their bags they are significantly reducing a source of landfill waste.

And since “coffee is the world’s second most valuable traded commodity” (Global Exchange) there is no shortage of burlap material.

After learning of the creative and practical way ReJAVAnate has used burlap I decided to find out what other uses people have found for burlap.

A quick Google search led me to a Creative Reuse article that had this to say, “Because burlap is a strong, natural, biodegradable material, it makes good erosion control products such as sandbags. Burlap bags are used for collecting fallen leaves, ground coverings in nurseries, and in winter residential gardens to prevent frost and wind damage”

I also found a short list of Uses for Burlap in your garden on the HGTV website.

I also learned that many coffee roasters, like Paradise roasters of MN will give you their burlap bags Free of Charge. (Paradise roasters will even ship them to you if you pay the shipping costs).

Who knew that there were so many uses for burlap?

You can read Lena’s review of 2 different Rejavanate bags at OverCoffee

Pictures from rejavanate.com