Eco Home Pick of the Week: Jute Area Rugs

April 23, 2012 in Green Business, Green Business News, Green Stories, Green Tech, Green Products with 1 Comment

U.S. Green Technology | Where Main Street Meets Green Street

Merida Home's jute rugs bring a room together with elegant weaves and earthy tones. Image from Merida Home.

Jute is a plant fiber primarily grown in India and China. It’s often used to make twine, rope, sacks, upholstery coverings, area rugs, and in less visible places (like the underside of linoleum). Jute fiber is strong, but affordable and highly renewable. It’s one of the least expensive green technology fibers in existence, which makes jute rugs a great eco-decor option for many households.

Jute rugs are known for their utilitarian roughness. You’ll find them in beach houses and seaside condos. They also make excellent bath mats and door mats. However, green technology designers are giving jute rugs a little more style and moving them out of the mud room.

At Merida Home, designers are presented with strict green technology and style guidelines, which seem to inspire them further, instead of putting limitations on their imaginations. Natural fibers like jute are woven in a variety of beautiful, intricate patterns to create full-scale area rugs that are too stunning to relegate to the front porch. Merida Home’s collection of jute rugs is both timeless and stylish, perfectly complementing traditional and modern rooms.

In addition to their green technology production requirements, Merida Homes only works with partners who pay workers fairly, don’t employ children, enforce safety and health standards, and refuse to discriminate while hiring.

A jute area rug might not be the way to go if you live in a particularly humid climate, or are looking for a soft, cushy rug to wiggle your toes into. But if you’re looking for something made with 100% green technology which is highly renewable (jute plants can mature in four months), biodegradable (many “plantable pots” are made of jute), and will tie your room together with natural elegance, give jute a second look.

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About Leslie Hedrick: Leslie Hedrick has been a freelance writer and journalist since 2009. Her work, centering around green technology and sustainable living, has been published across the internet and in magazines throughout North America. She studied writing at Columbia College Chicago, and currently resides in northern Kentucky. Connect with Leslie on Leslie Hedrick

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