What’s better then recycling? UPcycling! Level Ground makes discarded coffee bags into something better.

The dreaded coffee bag. It must keep roasted beans fresh, while allowing gasses to escape. The world’s finest eco-coffee minds have yet to come up with a viable recyclable option for this critical part of the bean’s journey to your cup.

So how about making it into another product entirely? That’s the idea behind UPCYCLING.
Level Ground Trading, a Victoria, BC based coffee roaster, has created a program to collect used coffee bags from their customers and have them made into stylish bags by Work Of Your Hand, an organization that helps artisans from developing nations find dignity and self-worth through work that pays fair wages. In an over-the-top example of supply-chain transparency, each bag even comes with a short bio on the person who sewed it.

In 2011, Level Ground collected the equivalent of 24,000 packages weighing 926 lbs. Of course, shipping the bags back and forth to the Phillipines has its own set of environmental issues, but the effort, social benefits and beautiful results from this program are definitely worth supporting. The finished bags are property of Work Of Your Hand and they can be sold as they wish (they are obligated to conduct all of their business practices according to the 10 Fair Trade standards outlined by the WFTO) 
If you would like one of these unique works of craft, they can be can be purchased directly from Level Ground by e-mailing orders@levelground.com

So buy some Level Ground coffee at London Drugs, and keep that bag out of your own waste stream. It has a better life ahead.

How reclamation works:

• Buy your Level Ground Coffee at London Drugs
• Save your Level Ground coffee package
• Return it to a Reclamation Station – (find one here)
• Level Ground will send it to www.workofyourhand.com
• Work of Your Hand will convert the package into crafts and accessories.