Ohh, my, yes! by all means-make the bags out of burlap! BUT!! Buy a good face mask, because the chopped up leaves will make yer lungs look like chopped up leaves, in about ten mimutes, or less!
Yep--save a buck, but destroy yer lungs. Penny-wise and pound foolish.
Those leaf picker-upper makers just spend all that cash on designing leaf picker-uppers, so they can justify the high cost of them! (Where did the education of our youth go so wrong?? Some how, the statement: Buy the kids shoes, send them to school, and they eat the books! is sounding more appropriate every day!

The bags that come with the things don't keep all the leaf dust from blowing everywhere so that's really not relevant to my question. If the companies would make bags that lasted, this would not be an issue. But I'm not paying $15 or $20 bucks for a replacement bag that's just going to get holes blasted in it again. AND for your information, I had a 29 on my ACT with no prep classes, and earned a 4.0 GPA in high school and a 3.8 GPA average for four years of college. I'm not some idiot. I realize that shredding leaves makes dust; I realize the effect of breathing said dust; and I'll wear a mask if I choose. I just wanted practical, factual based information on if the burlap would work well for its function. I did not ask for health advice. Perhaps you should get your reading comprehension checked.

A while back, (at least three years) my wife and i sewed two 50 lb. burlap potato sacks together to make a bag for our chipper shredder. It still works very well. However there is a lot of dust produced. I wear a mask and goggles and try to stay up wind when i can. Not too much more dust than the original factory bag.The reason we did this is, original bags are no longer available.We shred mostly leaves for the garden and flower beds.

Thanks, Nod. I thought about trying the heavy duty plastic bags that my cat food comes in, or our cattle food bags which are larger, but they are not porous and I think the air needs somewhere to escape or it won't work well.

Yes, you will need a porous bag/materiel and the best thing we could find at the time were two burlap potato bags. In fact i haven't seen any burlap bags lately. Seems everything is plastic or paper. Hope you find a solution.

to make for more collection room i cut part of top out of 40 gal trash can added vent made of weed guard in place of cut-out and bought collar of pvc plumbing material from lowes to connect hose from blower. i than secured top of trash can with bungie cords,two in each direction.works good.