Tell Me About Jute!

Due to its natural colour and importance jute has become known as the ‘golden fibre’ (Wild Fibres). The fabric has little impact on the environment and is proven to be very durable, it is also incredibly affordable as the plants are easy to grow, produce a large crop and unlike cotton, they don’t require various pesticides and fertilizers. The fibre is a relation of the flax and hemp plants and is extracted by a very similar method. Jute has a vast array of uses ranging from carpet backing to re-usable bags.

Jute Biology:

Jute is mainly grown in India in the fertile Ganges Delta where it produces a high yield annual crop. Kew Royal Botanic Gardens classifies it as part of the lime tree family but it is seen as being related to Malvaceae with cotton.

Jute Fibre:

The silky golden brown fibres can be 1 to 4 meters in length. Interestingly unlike most textile fibres jute is part lignin, a major component of wooden fibres. this makes jute part textile and part wood.

Uses of Jute:

The fibre is used in a large range of products, for example, its used in coffee sacks, bale covers and carpet backing. Though you are more likely to recognise jute as twine in your garden or as a woven durable fabric. Which by the way makes great branded bags! The fabric is also used in chair coverings, environmentally-friendly coffins and rugs.

As well as these great uses the fibre is used as a geotextile, helping to stabilise landslides and to prevent erosion. It works by keeping moisture in and holding the soil in place, whilst the open weave allows space for plants to grow. Once the plants are well established the natural fabric will start to biodegrade. In a more experimental context, it is being tested in the commercial papermaking industry and is proving to have the potential to start supplementing pine and spruce fibres.

Jute Cultivation:

To grow successfully the jute plant needs, tropical rainfall, warm weather and high humidity, so we guess it won’t be growing in the UK anytime soon! The plants are grown close together so that they can grow tall and straight . The strong plant has little need for any pesticides or fertilisers helping to further improve its rating as an environmentally-friendly fabric.

Jute Harvesting:

It takes just 4-6 months for the plant to be fully grown and ready for harvesting, by this time the stems are up to 3.5 meters tall and as thick as a finger. In the harvest season, the fields are usually submerged so workers often have to wade through the water to cut the stems and tie them into bundles.

Fibre Extraction:

Jute produces four times the yield per acre than flax on average. the fibres are found under the bark, wrapped around the woody core or ‘hurd’. The fibres are extracted by submerging the bundles in water until they become loose and are ready for stripping, this can take up to three days. The fibres are then washed and dried.

History of Jute:

The fibre has been used in India on family farms for centuries. It was twisted it into cordage and made into twine and ropes to be used on the farm. The jute hurd, left after the fibre was extracted, was used as firewood. Now it is almost entirely grown by commercial growers.

The hardy fibre started to be exported in the 1880s when a system for spinning and weaving was developed in Dundee (Scotland), where there is now a jute museum. Jute products were then sold widely and soon replaced their equivalents in hemp and flax. By the 1970 many jute products were replaced by synthetic fibres and by the late 1990s, bulk packaging in global transport and storage reduced the need for jute sacks. Jute production declined from between 3 and 3.7 million tonnes a year to between 2.6 and 2.8 million tonnes. Despite this decline, it is still a very important plant fibre, second only to cotton’s production of 22 million tonnes a year.

Why is it an Environmentally Friendly Fibre?

It has a low carbon footprint, it is biodegradable, feeds the soil and all parts of the plant can be used.

Good for the air– These marvellous plants help to clean the air; during growth they assimilate three times more CO2 than the average tree, converting the CO2 into oxygen. Polypropylene (the material used in plastic bags) does the opposite, producing huge amounts of CO2 during its manufacture.

Good for the soil-As well as having little need for fertilisers and pesticides, jute plants enrich the soil. As these plants grow fast, they are often used in crop rotation. The leaves and roots left after harvest enrich the soil with micronutrients, maintaining soil fertility. The flooded fields also support fish populations. When used as a geotextile, it puts nutrients back in the soil when it decomposes.

Great source of wood pulp– The stalks left after the fibre has been extracted may help to meet the worlds need for wood pulp, as well as being a renewable source of cooking fuel.

Here at GoJute, we have an incredible range of bags from Juco to cotton, take a look here to view!