Jute is a long, soft, shiny vegetable fibre that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from plants family. Jute is one of the cheapest natural fibres and is second only to cotton in amount produced and variety of uses. The industrial term for jute fibre is raw jute. The fibres are off-white to brown, and 1–4 meters (3–12 feet) long. Jute fibre is often called hessian, jute fabrics are also called hessian cloth and jute sacks are called gunny bags in some European countries. The fabric made from jute is popularly known as burlap in North America. Jute has been cultivated in India since ancient times, The Indian jute industry, in turn, was modernized during the British Rule in India. The modern day area of Bengal-Bangladesh region was the major center for Jute cultivation, and remained so before the modernization of India's jute industry in 1855, when Kolkata became a center for jute processing in India. Jute is the second most important vegetable fibre after cotton; not only for cultivation, but also for various uses. Jute is used chiefly to make cloth for wrapping bales of raw cotton, and to make sacks and coarse cloth. The fibres also woven into curtains, chair coverings, carpets, area rugs, hessian cloth, and backing and also used for making shopping bags. Diversified jute products are becoming more valuable to the consumer today. Among these are espadrilles, floor coverings, home textiles, high performance technical textiles, Geotextiles, composites, and bags more.

FEATURES OF JUTE:


• Jute fibre is 100% bio-degradable and recyclable and thus environmentally friendly.
• It is a natural fiber with golden and silky shine and hence called The Golden Fiber.
• It is the cheapest vegetable fiber procured from the best skin of the plant's stem.
• It is the second most important vegetable fibre after cotton, in terms of usage, global consumption, production, and availability.
• It has high tensile strength, low extensibility, and ensures better breath ability of fabrics. The jute is very suitable in agricultural commodity bulk packaging.
• Advantages of jute includes good insulating and antistatic properties, as well as having low thermal conductivity and a moderate moisture regain. Other advantage of jute include acoustic insulating properties and no skin irritations during manufacturing.

Thus jute is the most environment-friendly fibre starting from the seed to expired fibre, as the expired fibre can be recycled more than once.