Gulf News jute bags: Art and conservation

Dubai: The jute bags distributed by Gulf News, to mark its ‘Go Green' editorial campaign and 30th year are a sign of the newspaper's commitment to the community and world at large.

It is not enough just to spread awareness but necessary to live it and be an example.

The journey of the bags from factory to subscriber clearly illustrates this. While Gulf News wanted to give people an environmentally friendly product, it also had to be of high quality, durability and use. So it chose to partner with one of the pioneering jute bag makers from India — Aarbur.

Based in Kolkata, the manufacturers sell their jute bags around the world, especially in retail fashion, in Europe, as they are recognised as adept at creating Hessian works of art.

Shruti Ghose from Creations Art, the representative organisation for Aarbur in the UAE, talked us through the process of making the jute bags for Gulf News.

She said: "Once the jute fibres are woven into fabric, usually by machine, the bag-making process begins."

As the fabric comes with a natural shade that is more vanilla rather than white, it gets either dyed or bleached.

"Based on the design of the bag, the fabric is cut into sheets. The pieces are then moved to the printing tables," she said.

Special printing screens are created based on the pattern. If the pattern is monochromatic, then just one screen with copies is created.

However, as Gulf News's bag has several colours and detailed patterns, a screen was created for each layer.

"For every colour, a screen is placed on the fabric," explained Ghose. "It has to be done manually and the alignment has to be perfect.

"It took about 30 minutes to do one colour for 100 bags. The weather also played a role. As it was the monsoon season in India, when Gulf News bags were being made, more time had to be spent in the screen-printing process, for the colour to dry."

Once the entire pattern is completed, the fabric is cut to size and put through a lamination machine, which uses heat to seal the colour. It also makes the bags stiffer and water resistant.

She said: "The pieces were then stitched. This is where housewives come in. Women who cannot leave home to seek employment are supplied machines by the factory. They do the stitching at home — they are employed on contracts.

"This gives them the flexibility and a source of income."

Ghose explained that the sewing was particularly difficult because of the sides, or gussets, for the bag.

"The gussets had the Go Green logo, which has more than one colour and their alignment has to be exact for each bag. This, too, had to be done manually. They took very long to be done," she said.

Once the bag was stitched using semi-automatic machines, the handles were stitched on. Finally they were hung out to dry in the blast of industrial blowers, as the humidity in the air could otherwise damage the quality of the finished product.

"Once dried, people worked to brush off loose fibres from the individual bags," Ghose said.

Then came the packaging. As Gulf News distributed two bags, the smaller bag was placed inside the bigger bag, yet another manual and time-consuming process.

They were then packed into cartons and shipped off.

Ghose added: "Of course, there was a final independent quality check before it reached the consumer."