Jute is an eco-friendly natural replacement for plastic in carry bags and is gaining ground as the best alternative solution, as the government and people become more environmentally conscious. The golden fibre was the initial business of many a venerable Indian corporate - Tatas, the Birlas, and other legendary business tycoons ran jute mills and exported the product in finished or manufactured form. Other than the ubiquitous gunny sack and jholas, jute today is taking over from plastic as the material for the shopping/carry bag, with many vendors looking towards it as an alternative, from malls to corner stores.

Urban ladies like Mrs. Dugar, 46, love jute. So she buys only jute bags, door mats and some other jute products for her home and also recommends other people to use. But though these traditional uses of the fiber have been around for most of the century, jute hasn’t remained the rather rough and (boring?) brown fabric associated with potato sacks.

Today the multi utility value and advantages of using jute is realized with new products like bottle covers, photo frames, apparels, accessories, foot wears, wall hangings and much more are made available in beautiful textures, designs and stunning colors. Jute, for the first time is poised to take over from environmentally harmful materials which add on to increase global warming.

From artisans to the corporates
Big corporates are once more looking towards the fibre, and playing a role in its resurgence as a material of wide significance. The Araria Jute Project and R&D Centre is a multi faceted development initiative from the Sahara India Pariwar. Mr Sujoy Ghosh, the marketing head says that, “Jute is environmental friendly, but people still buy plastic because the majority of people prefer buying the cheaper products. Moreover people are losing interests in buying handcrafts which the artisans produce… many artisans are now forced to work in farms and other places for their livelihood.” The idea of the project is to impart knowledge to the artisans and to the people of the Araria about new jute trades; to rehabilitate the artisans and also to support them for a better standard of living by providing them with technical support, raw materials; and their produce such as blankets, carpets, floor coverings, bags and other jute diversified products are sold in the urban market. A pollution free Solar Energy System has been installed on the project site, too!

Every human activity consumes resources from the planet and produces waste that the planet has to then deal with and if we keep on ignoring the degrading environmental affairs, it won’t do any good for the humanity. Thus the use of plastics (of all forms) should come to an end and green alternatives like jute should be promoted with other eco-alternatives.

And it should start with us. I’m getting a jute bag to shop with!