From The Archives
Two sisters upcycle brewery waste into usable fashion.
A version of this piece originally appeared in the February 2020 issue of West Coaster Magazine and has been updated and lightly edited for clarity.
“I like playing with garbage,” laughs Fiorella Rossel Borkert, better known as Fio. “Gimme gimme gimme gimme!”
I’d never kink-shame anyone’s trash fetish, but Rossel & Company, the company Fio started with her sister Romina Rossel (Romi) is both family-friendly and earth-friendly. The Peruvian-born sisters have lived in San Diego for around two decades and are longtime fixtures in the local beer industry. Both have artistic backgrounds: Fio in fashion and Romi in photography, design, and visual arts.
But it’s craft beer that’s transformed from a hobby to an obsession for the pair. In 2015, Fio quit her nine-to-five job to pursue a career in beer, Romi is currently the secretary of the Pink Boots Society San Diego chapter, and both worked at Wild Barrel Brewing in San Marcos. (Romi has since moved into the spirits realm as the Content Marketing Manager at Misadventure & Co.)
Needless to say, when the Rossel sisters go for it, they stick together and go all in.
Immersing themselves in the industry wasn’t enough. A few years ago, a sustainably-minded former coworker showed Fio the supposedly recyclable bags they received shipments of malt in. It turns out the sturdy material, despite being marked as recyclable, wasn’t (and still isn’t). His nudge set the movement in motion.
“He was like, ‘This material can be upcycled. You have a fashion degree, so do something with this,’” recalls Fio. “So I touched it and immediately knew I could use it. I made some totes and brought them back a week later. Everyone was super pumped and people were like, ‘You should sell this.’”
The sisters show me samples of their latest creations, which has expanded from tote bags under the Bountiful Bag line to aprons and other lifestyle goods, all created from upcycled vinyl and malt bags from malt companies like Weyermann.
Weyermann describes their bags as “customized, ‘aroma-sealed’ bags” that are “tear-resistant, one-way, double-layer bags made from woven fabric with a sturdy, waterproof polyethylene inner lining.” This durability is what makes recycling difficult, but proves ideal for dependable accessories like totes.
“This is a big problem people don’t really know about,” explains Romi. “We’re the Capital of Craft, the biggest beer production state and city, and we’re creating so much trash. Can we do something about it?”
Fio adds: “We’re creating jobs, we’re creating a lot of economic impact, but at the same time we’re creating a lot of trash. This is not the beer industry's fault. It’s just how it is.”
They’re excited about making a dent in the debris. “It’s super cool because one, you're using a material that otherwise would end up in the landfill,” says Fio. “Two, you're helping the environment, because even though the material says that it's recyclable, California doesn't have a facility that will actually recycle them. So they're all going into the landfill and it was a huge red flag for us. If we can do something with at least a portion of them, then it's helping a little bit.”
According to Romi, the only location in the United States willing to recycle the bags is located in North Carolina, and by Fio’s estimate, costs upwards of a million dollars.
Rossel & Company hasn’t stopped at malt bags. They’ve rescued vinyl banners from Vans Warped Tour, Surfrider Foundation, and Karl Strauss’ Collabapalooza, as well as products from breweries like Drake’s Brewing Company in San Leandro and El Segundo Brewing Company near Los Angeles. Thousands of pounds of what would have been waste have been transformed into usable—and frankly, pretty stylish—goods that look cool and actually hold up with daily use.
Within six months of launching Rossel & Company, local environmental group I Love A Clean San Diego recognized Fio and Romi with the 2018 Zero Waste Innovation Award, which helped create a relationship between the two organizations that’s been going strong ever since.
Both sisters hope that as awareness of this trash problem grows, two things will happen: breweries will reevaluate how they use and discard packaging products and secondly, that other craftspeople will steal their concept.
“People tell us that we should patent this. No! We want to set an example and have other people do the same so this becomes standard procedure. You make a banner for an event and then you upcycle it and we'll make a big seller,” says Fio. “People can rip us off. We want people to do this. In a perfect world, the Bountiful Bag doesn’t exist. We’re okay with that.”
But for now, it’s a family affair. “We’re hustlers,” grins Fio. “Nothing’s going to stop us.”
Find out more about the Bountiful Bag’s recycling efforts on their website and on Instagram.
Prohibitchin' is made possible by a sponsorship from Hopsbauer, a woman-owned hops brokerage company based in San Diego. Hopsbauer brings the best hops from around the world to craft breweries. Find out more by visiting Hopsbauer.com, and thanks to Liz Bauer for her generous support!
Do you know of a woman or non-binary person working in beverage alcohol who hasn’t seen the spotlight—and should? Nominate them for a future feature!