A consortium of Dutch and international partners has found a new life for the thousands of jute coffee sacks discarded each year. The project, Coffeebag Re-Imagined, turns these single-use sacks into a durable, biobased felt material for design and interior applications.

Turning Waste into Value

Every day, small coffee roasters use and throw away countless jute bags after a single shipment. These sacks are usually incinerated, releasing unnecessary CO₂. In Amsterdam alone, textile burning accounts for around 4% of the city’s total emissions.

To change this, Clean & Unique, BYBO coffee, i-did, and designer Sylvia Calvo BCN joined forces. Together, they created a circular solution that keeps the material in use. BYBO collects the used sacks, and i-did transforms them into a strong, biobased felt. The result is a tactile, acoustic, and versatile material.

This new felt can be used for lampshades, acoustic panels, or mattress fillings. It also replaces disposable paper items like coasters, placemats, and hotel door hangers. By doing so, the project not only saves resources but also builds a new value chain for local materials.

Design Collaboration and Material Innovation

Designer Sylvia Calvo BCN helped shape the material’s look and feel. Her work connects sustainability with aesthetics, making the felt suitable for both decorative and functional purposes. The project quickly attracted international attention at Circular Textile Days in Den Bosch, Texworld in Paris, and Green Week in Brussels.

As a result, the first product requests have already come in from interior brands and hospitality companies. This growing interest shows the demand for local, biobased and circular materials in design and architecture.

A Circular Chain for the Future

The partners continue their collaboration under the name Re-Yut-Cel. Each contributes to scaling up production and exploring new product applications. Together, they are building a future-proof circular chain that connects different industries.

Roosmarie Ruigrok, project initiator at Clean & Unique, summarises it clearly: “We’re connecting two worlds that rarely meet — the coffee sector and the textile and interior industries. This project proves that waste can be the start of something new and valuable.”

Source: Duurzaam Ondernemen
Photo: Coffeebag Re-Imagined