Creative Loafing Charlotte interviewed Marc Mataya the CEO and inventor of Burrito Brands. Innovative, Eco friendly reusable bags for residential & commercial use. With a mission to get rid of plastic bags and clean up our streets.
Listen to the interview here: CLC Podcast
See more information below! & visit their website to purchase! www.burritobrands.com & www.leafburrito.com

In 2015, Burrito Brands Incorporated, revealed the Leaf Burrito® Year-Round Yard Bag as the first product in a family of efficient, reusable and sustainable tools designed to replace plastic bags, paper bags, short-lived tarps & burlap sheets. Still based in Charlotte, NC, the Leaf Burrito® was invented when Marc Mataya realized the need for a SAFER, ERGONOMIC, SUSTAINABLE, DURABLE and of course, REUSABLE, yard debris bag. Our product is currently being used around the world by landscapers, universities, resorts, facilities management companies, grounds departments, gardeners, neighborhoods and individual home-owners. Our products have been, and still are, all MADE IN THE USA, and now made right in Charlotte, NC at our new Burrito Factory that launched in April 2020.
Leaf Burrito® helps to solve a world-wide crisis with single-use plastic film and poly tarps that are all unnecessarily going into our landfills, storm drains, rivers and oceans. All around the world, yard debris removal is a continual problem for municipalities, landscapers and home owners alike, and the plants, grass, hedges and trees will never stop growing. Dirty plastic film and tarps are not economically recyclable, so our solution is simply to stop buying and using single-use or short-lived items.

Our Design & Utility Patented Products are clever and revolutionary in that they start completely flat, then zip closed via five zippers to contain the contents, then offer up to ten handles for ergonomic handling. Our custom-made mesh fabric along with the YKK® heavy-duty zippers and webbing makes the product incredibly durable. Even if you cut our mesh, it will not continue to run as each intersection is heat-welded together. This simple and durable design drastically improves the entire life-cycle of the collection and transportation of yard debris, mulch, clippings and more.
For municipalities and "curbside emptying," our product replaces the need for the cumbersome and unnatractive single-use plastic and paper bags for yard waste collection, and are significantly faster for the waste management staff which must ultimately manually separate the plastic film from the debris. Still to this day, the most affordable and efficient model is using rear-loading trucks with a driver and two riding staff members for loading. Side-loaders are twice as expensive and bear the burden of providing and servicing costly roll out carts which are very limiting in size and does not address excess overages. Vacuum trucks are very expensive, inefficient, loud, air polluting, do not work with wet leaves and sit idle for most of the year.
Homeowners piling up their leaves and debris at the curb causes major problems for Storm Water systems, blocks sidewalks and blows into the streets with the wind. Paper bags are still bulky single-use items, carry a very significant carbon footprint to make and distribute, are incredibly cumbersome to fill, require many more bags because they don’t stretch, and they have a limited lifespan in the rain or with wet leaves. Plus, dead-lifting a paper bag with no handles is not ergonomic! Additionally, they conceal the contents where we have had reports of bricks, hammers and even paint cans being run through the composting machines which is obviously dangerous and damaging. Our pourous mesh also allows the drivers to visibly see the contents as well as allow the material to breathe and not decompose in plastic bags. Our product allows the drivers to visually see what is being put into the trucks and is safer for drivers to "UNZIP & FLIP!" Plus, they just look a million times better on the street, especially when they are custom branded for city/neighborhood pride and uniformity.
The Leaf Burrito® Year Round Yard Bag solves all of these problems by containing the yard waste at the curb. We have proven that home-owners keep up with the debris more often because our product is so easy to use which reduces built-up giant loads that throws off the truck schedules with unexpected and costly unloading out-and-back trips that occur mid-route. The City of Charlotte Solid Waste Department trucks have been successfully curbside emptying our residential 5-foot version since February of 2017 with a 100% reusage rate by these residential customers.
Our 5-foot bag is a year-round product used for grass clippings, weeds, sticks, logs and hedge clippings, holds 4+ large plastic bags worth of leaves, allows water to pass through the mesh, stores easily, hoses clean and will last for 5-10 years of use. We also sell a 7’ commercial landscaper bag with 10 handles for heavier loads and eliminates the need for short-lived tarps and plastic bags that end up in the landfills. The 7-foot bags can be used by Parks and Recreation crews, facilities management services, grounds maintenance companies and City-employed maintenance crews doing landscaping and litter clean up around the city.
Our company goal is to scale to multiple "Burrito Factories" around the USA and ultimately use their local plastic recycling waste to create the mesh and webbing and patches used on our product. Our simple construction includes sewing zippers, handles and patches and screen printing, so we can easily create thousands of jobs while upcycling our existing waste resources all while supporting our great partners to Keep America Beautiful®!
For more information, please contact us as sales@leafburrito.com or 800-BURRITO.