These round coasters are made from woven plastic bags with leather around them. They are among the many items in our Mayan Hands recycling project that involves collecting used plastic bags, washing, and cutting them into strips. The strips are then woven on the backstrap loom. Wipe clean with a wet cloth.

People ask us how these products are made. The weavers collect used plastic bags, wash and clean them, cut them into strips and weave them on their back-strap looms. Cotton yarns are used for the warp (to make the cloth more stable) and the strips of plastic constitute the weft. Plastic bags in Guatemala come in all the colors of the rainbow, so the women weave them combining colors, according to the bags they find in their communities

Assorted Colors