Reuse: Company uses scraps to make bags
By Natalie Ragus

An upholstery business is turning its scraps into sacks and hoping to help the environment in the process.

The owners of Jack’s Upholstery in Santa Maria, Calif., turn leftover upholstery material into a reusable grocery bag, which they call the JakSak.

Jack and Aurora Plaza are running their 30-year-old upholstery business in tandem with the JakSak operation.

When her husband first presented the idea of making and selling reusable grocery bags, Aurora Plaza said she was so excited that she found it difficult to contain herself.

“My heart, you know?” she said. “I was so excited I couldn’t sleep. The next morning, I started making bags.”

Two months and more than 200 bags later, the JakSak collection made its public debut, which its owners consider a success.

After returning empty-handed from a fishing trip for the fourth time in a row, Jack Plaza decided to explore the effects of pollution on waterways and wildlife, and said he was startled to learn of the correlation between plastic grocery bags and environmental destruction.

According to Californians Against Waste, nearly 600 bags per second are discarded in California - destined either for the landfill, the landscape or the ocean.

At least 267 species have been scientifically documented to be adversely affected by plastic debris, which is estimated to kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and turtles each year, the nonprofit environment research and advocacy organization said, adding that plastic bags are considered especially dangerous to sea turtles, which mistake them for jellyfish, their main food source.

“I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something,’” Jack Plaza said. “I was born here (in Santa Maria). I’ve seen the disappearance of clams. I’ve seen the disappearance of a lot of things in our environment ... we’ve been taking a lot of things for granted.”

And his epiphany couldn’t have come at a better time.

The plastic grocery bag may soon become a relic of the past in California.

In late July, the Los Angeles City Council approved an ordinance that bans the use of plastic bags at retail outlets and grocery stores throughout the city after July 1, 2010.

San Francisco has a similar ordinance already in place, and environmental groups are lobbying state legislators to ban plastic bags throughout California.

Several countries around the world also have banned plastic grocery bags.

Aurora Plaza shows off the completed JakSaks, lining the shelves and racks in the upholstery warehouse’s small, cramped office.

The bags range in shape and style from tall, rectangular and striped to something like a trendy, oversized burlap purse. One bag was made out of the same material as the upholstery of some Volkswagen models.

Heritage Oaks Bank has dubbed Jack’s Upholstery Santa Maria’s “Business of the Month” for August and began featuring JakSaks at its Santa Maria branch.

In just a week, the bank took orders for 30 of the bags, and the Plazas purchased four sewing machines and plan to hire four employees to help make the bags.

The Plazas’ launch plans for JakSaks also include marketing the bags to small, locally based grocery stores and joining forces with surrounding high schools to sell the bags as fundraisers.

“The kids are real hard working. You can see they’re real ambitious,” said Jack Plaza’s aunt, Flora Reyes, recalling that the couple started their upholstery business in their home by upholstering the furniture of her nephew’s Air Force colleagues for free.

Now, Jack’s Upholstery is a booming business housed in a spacious, two-unit warehouse building with five employees.

Jack Plaza said he feels confident that JakSaks will continue catch on with the public in the same manner as Jack’s Upholstery.

So does his wife.

Soon, she predicted, “people will be saying, ‘Don’t forget your JakSak when you get your groceries.”

Natalie Ragus is a reporter for the Santa Maria Times. Contact: nragus@santamariatimes.com .