Our Story

The seed for Stardust was planted 35 years ago in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Summers during college I worked on a tree farm where we would hand dig trees, burlap the root balls and tie them with jute rope. I thought it was pretty cool the burlap and jute was strong enough to hold together a 2,000 pound root ball, yet would biodegrade in about 9 weeks. I thought there must be other uses for such a strong, earth friendly fiber.

I tucked that thought aside, completed a degree in horticulture at Virginia Tech and ran a landscape architecture firm for 35 years. I had been retired for about a week and was reading about how plastic bags were destroying our ecosystem and it hit me! Why not make shopping bags from jute fiber?

Stardust Sustainables was born!

We bought a garage full of bags and started selling them at farmers markets, gift shops and local grocery stores. Then we began getting requests from businesses, churches and organizations to make custom bags. Our bags can be found in stores throughout the American West and now we are branching out to other areas of the country.

‘We are Stardust, we are golden….and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden’-Joni Mitchell

Our name was inspired by Joni Mitchell’s song Woodstock. This song was somewhat of an anthem for my generation and I have always felt a special connection with it. I am very proud to produce an earth-friendly bag that literally returns 'back to the garden'.