Natural Environment Blog

Jute is a type of vegetable fiber used to make items such as rope, twine, carpet, rugs, hessian cloth, and much more. It’s leaves and roots have also been used as food and medicine in some parts of India and Bangladesh.

Jute plants come in two varieties; White Jute (Corchorus capsularis) and Tossa Jute (Corchorus olitorius). Jute is a flowering plant, and can grow to around 10 feet tall.

Jute fiber is quite strong, and it doesn’t fibrillate or bleach easily. It is one of the cheapest natural fibers available, and has a wide range of applications on top of the aforementioned ones. Jute can be used to make paper, geotextile, a fiberglass alternative, particleboard, and more.

I wrote about some of these uses of jute, as well as the potential it has in these areas.

Environmental Benefits of Jute

Jute has many environmental benefits.

For starters, it’s carbon dioxide neutral, improves soil quality, and it has a high biological efficiency. Products made from jute are 100% biodegradable, recyclable, and can be easily disposed without causing environmental hazards.

Here’s more detail on the environmental benefits of jute.

Where can I buy Jute Products?

You might be able to find jute products at your local organic clothing or homeware store. There are a lot of jute bags around for example.

Online, there many websites offering jute products but it’s hard to find one offering online purchases. Amazon.com do have a range of jute products. You could try their jute bags, or their apparel section (which also has some bags).

If you’re a retailer, you could try the Jute Industry website.

For thousands of years, jute (a type of natural vegetable fiber) has been used to make products such as rope, twine, hessian cloth, and much more. Jute leaves and roots have even been used as food and a medicine in parts of Bangladesh and India.

Despite its well established past, jute still hasn’t realized its full potential on the worldwide market - especially in the developed countries. Hopefully this will change.

Here are 4 applications where jute has enormous potential.

Jute Paper

Demand for paper keeps growing every year. In 2003, the Certified Forest Products Council said:

Worldwide demand for paper – the single largest use of wood fibre – is five times what it was in the 1950s. This number is expected to double again over the next 50 years.

The problem here is that, more and more trees are being cut down to meet this increasing demand. Unless something is done about this (and fast), we’ll run out of forests.

Jute can be used to make high quality and specialized paper. Jute plants grow extremely fast, and produces 20 to 40 ton of dry stem per hectare. In comparison, the fastest growing trees take between 10 and 14 years to mature. Also, trees will only produce between 8 to 12 ton, per hectare, annually.

Although jute paper is being produced, it’s in very small quantities compared with paper from trees. More jute paper please!

Fiberglass Alternative

Jute can be used as a reinforcing agent in plastics to create a jute reinforced composite. It can be used as a more environmentally friendly version of fiberglass. It can be used in the packaging industry, the automobile industry, and it can also be used as construction material.

The packaging industry is responsible for around 30% of plastic consumption in the developed countries. It is also responsible for over 20% of the total solid waste and 3.7% of energy consumption. Using a jute alternative would significantly reduce the impact of these plastics on the environment.

Particleboard

Jute could be used in particleboard instead of wood. Particleboard (also referred to as “chipboard”), is a wood product made from wood particles such as wood chips, sawmill shavings, and/or sawdust. Jute fiber could just as easily be used instead of wood particles to provide a more environmentally friendly product.

Geotextiles

Jute Geotextile (JGT) has proven very effective at addressing various soil-related issues in the civil engineering industry. JGT can be used to assist with:

• Protection of slopes in road and railway embankments, bridge approaches, terraces in hilly terrains, etc.
• Stabilisation of sand dunes, mine spoils, etc.
• Promotion of quick vegetation in areas denuded by things like cyclones, earthquakes, landslides, etc.
• Stabilisation of waste dumps.
• Prevention of reflection cracks
• Protection of riverbanks
• Strengthening of roads
• Filtration

The benefits of Jute Geotextile over other geotextiles include:

• Price - cheaper than other geotextiles (synthetic or natural)
• Easy availability and transportation
• Superior drapability
• Greater moisture retention capacity

There are many other geotextile solutions - some with natural fibers, others with synthetic. Out of the geotextiles, jute is one of the most compelling. However, it currently has a very small market share of this industry.

Hopefully the benefits of jute will become more widely recognized and we can start seeing some changes for the better.

Jute is a versatile, natural fiber that has been used for thousands of years to make things such as rope, twine, hessian bags, rugs, and much more.

While it’s still being used extensively around the world, it’s not as popular as it could (or should) be - especially considering its outstanding environmental benefits. Given the increasing focus on environmental issues these days, jute might just be in for a crack at the bigtime.

Here are the major environmental benefits of jute:

• Jute cleans the air: Studies indicate that, one hectare of jute plants can consume up to 15 tons of carbon dioxide and release 11 tons of oxygen during the jute growing season (about 100 days).
• Less fertilizer, herbicides, & pesticides: Relatively modest amounts of fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticides are required for jute cultivation - especially in comparison to cotton.
• Improves soil conditions: During jute cultivation, large portions of leaves and roots remain with the soil. This results in improved soil fertility.
• Improves other crops: When jute is rotated with other crops, it can improve the health of those other crops and reduce their risk of attracting pests and disease.
• Jute has high biological efficiency: Jute can be harvested within 4 to 6 months, and can produce between 20 to 40 ton of dry stem per hectare. In comparison, the fastest growing trees take between 10 and 14 years to mature. Also, trees will only produce between 8 to 12 ton, per hectare, annually.
• Sound agricultural practices: Studies have found that typical jute agricultural practices are environmentally sound - they cause minimal impact to the natural enviroment.
• Biodegradability: Jute products are 100% biodegradable and recyclable. They can also be disposed of without causing environmental hazards.

As long as the processing of jute is done in an eco-friendly way, jute has enormous potential as an eco-friendly alternative to its mainstream rivals such as cotton and trees.

Organic linen refers to linen that is made from plant fibers as opposed to synthetic means. But more importantly, the plants have been grown without the use of toxic pesticides and fertilizers.

The term “linen” is often used in a generic sense to describe a certain textiles such as bedding, table cloths, towels, etc. This is quite a general use of the term and it doesn’t refer to what the term “linen” was originally used for. Linen originally referred to yarn and fabric made from flax fibers (from the flax plant).

These days linen could be made from flax fibers, cotton, hemp, or it could be synthetic. Therefore, the term linen is now a little ambiguous.

If you are a purist, you might say that true linen is made from flax fibers.

Where Can I get Organic Linen?

Nowadays, there are plenty of products on the market made of “organic linen” or “eco-friendly linen”. While some of these products may be made from flax fibers, many of them are made from other fibers.

• Crespi1797, a company from the 18th century, continue to produce pure linen made from flax
• MikkaWork, a Chinese company, make organic linen
• Australian company, ecoLinen uses organic cotton in their eco-friendly linen products. ecoLinen are the first linen company in Australia to be certified organic by SKAL International
• Rawganique produce organic clothes, towels, and bedding. They use use flax linen as well as hemp and organic cotton in their products

Milk silk is a term given to silk that is derived from milk. Yep, I’m talking about silk - the fabric with a rich, velvety texture and feels very luxurious on the skin.

At this stage, it’s not known how environmentally friendly milk silk will be. That largely depends on how the silk can eventually be successfully produced (if ever). To date, I know of two companies that have experimented with or produced milk silk:

• In 2000, a Canadian company announced that it was on the way to producing spider silk from goats milk. By 2002, it had successfully inserted spider genes into cows and hamsters and planned to progress to goats. By 2006 the company had almost run out of money.
• Cyarn, A Chinese company has been producing fabric made from milk. To produce the fabric, the company dries the milk, then extracts its proteins. The proteins are then combined with a solution in a special machine to whirl the fibers together. After this, the fibers are spun into yarn, then woven into fabric. This process has been around since World War 1 but has always been very expensive. Modern technology has reduced the cost, but it’s still quite expensive. Cyarn has received the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 green certification for the international ecological textiles.

Milk silk/milk yarn still isn’t mainstream yet. It sounds like Cyarn is leading the way in this market though. Hopefully they can keep it green and who knows where it will lead?

You can buy milk silk clothes online from Piscotta Cashmere. I presume the fabrics have been produced using milk yarn from Cyarn.