The Contamination of Jute Products

Jute fibre has long since been pre-treated with hydrocarbon-based jute batching oil (JBO) to increase its spinnability. Recently it has been alleged that hydrocarbons from jute sacks migrate into the contents packed in sacks, thereby contaminating the packed item. A study has been made on the subject and found that, in a 1 kg jute sack made from fibre pre-treated with 5% JBO, only 3.7 g of the JBO residue are transferred to its contents if the contents are constantly in contact with the sack surface. If the mass of the contents is 50 kg, then the level of contamination is 74 ppm. The International Jute Organisation (IJO) adopted special criteria for the manufacture of jute bags (known as IJO Standard 98/01) used in the packing of selected food-grade materials, taking into consideration the total unsaponifiables in the bags, but not what actually migrated from the sacks to the contents.