Sustainability through the Bio-Degradation of Cellulose

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): Trusted Clothes (Unpublished)

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016

And then there was a thought: I was thinking about it, and reflecting on the fact that I knew that natural fibres are made of either plant fibre or animal fibre.[i]^{,[ii],[iii],[iv]}  Plant fibres are those composed of cellulose.[v]^,[vi]  Animal fibres are those comprised of proteins like amino acid arrangements.[vii]

And then that got me thinking about sustainability and the cycle of growth, harvest, manufacture, distribution, and decomposition of the fibres, and so this one’s going to be a bit winding, just for fun and because I think it’s important for this particular topic and reasonable for this article.

Growth is what they do naturally. Harvest is either dehairing the coats off the animals or cutting and gathering the crops for the plant fibres.

Manufacture is the creation or construction, or more precisely the often textile weaving and knitting by rural and indigenous peoples (sometimes both as the same time), of clothes and other practical necessities of life (many times fashionable).

Distribution to many, many areas of the world that have these things in demand because, in general, if there are many, many, workers for something then there are even more consumers (paid wants or free needs) for these same things.

Lastly, decomposition is the recycling aspect of the natural fibre lifecycle as I call it, which becomes fertilizer to be used to lead into the growth cycle once more.

And I’ve been thinking about cellulose, and didn’t know how it broke down, and so I looked into it, and found some neat things.[viii]

Cellulose: what is it? How’s it related to sustainability? How does it break down?

So, to begin at the beginning, naturally, what is cellulose?

Cellulose is a long chain of linked sugar molecules that gives wood its remarkable strength. It is the main component of plant cell walls, and the basic building block for many textiles and for paper. Cotton is the purest natural form of cellulose. In the laboratory, ashless filter paper is a source of nearly pure cellulose.

Cellulose is a natural polymer, a long chain made by the linking of smaller molecules.[ix]

That’s going to take some unpacking; so, pretty please (!), bear with me. Everything has a history. Everything exists in a context.

Cellulose is no different, but there’s a different definition of context here. The history is wherever the cellulose comes from and the context is the decomposition of the material for us.

First of all, sugar molecules are the “numerous sweet, colourless, water-soluble compounds present in the sap of seed plants and the milk of mammals and making up the simplest group of carbohydrates.”[x]

Second of many, chained together sufficiently, they can develop the strength typically seen in trees, for instance, and, thus, can be, by deduction and implication be viewed as a lot of the reason for the construction materials for plants in general and their strength.[xi]

Plant cells are eukaryotic as opposed to prokaryotic that don’t, which means they have membrane-bound nuclei (nucleuses?) and organelles.[xii]^{,[xiii],[xiv]} And organelles themselves are busy-bodies, they create hormones, enzymes, and provide energy for the cell too; it’s almost a jack-of-all-trades or jane-of-all-crafts.[xv]

Plant cells, quite simply, make up the constituents of the plant fibres. So plant fibres are made of non-prokaryotic or eukaryotic cells, and cellulose in the plant fibres are links of smaller molecules. And there go, nature tends to repeat patterns in slight novelty.

From this, we can develop the general form of the nature of nature, or the “nature of things” based on what works, is efficient, and is generalizable as a seeming methodology of biology (maybe).[xvi]^,[xvii]

How’s it related to sustainability?

You asked for it (rhetorical). Sustainability is a bit like wellbeing or ethics, and in fact, a consequence of comprehensive and coherent, and careful, reasoning of the two together – ratiocination.[xviii]

Wellbeing is basically a search for better or worse ways to live with a preference for the better ways of living; ethics is pretty much the practice of better or worse ways of treating one another, and there’s plenty of ethics on hand to try and describe these things.[xix]^,[xx] 

It’s keeping things going for ourselves in self-interest, for kin and others in rational self-interest, and for other living things and their life support systems in an assertive, pro-active, and constructive Golden Rule ethic – pretty straightforward, I suppose.[xxi]^,[xxii]

Sustainability has to do with the generalized application of these ideas with respect to our relationship, in a standard interpretation, with the environment and one another. Right there, the intersection, apparently a popular term (or ‘intersectionality) in academic circles, of wellbeing, ethics, the Golden Rule, and sustainability; take sustainability as the practical outcome of these ideas in simultaneity.

And keeping a market or trade system, an environment, sets of habitats, cultures and lifestyles, and peoples of all stripes with wellbeing and acting ethically towards one another, the nature of the interrelationships becomes the nature of sustainability. If one does not keep these in some manner of framework, some theoretical and practical structure capable of persistence, then sustainability is pretty much a nil possibility.

The lifecycle of natural fibres takes this into account with a market system for textiles (for example), far reduced impact on the environmental devastation caused by climate change or global warming through low carbon ‘footprint,’ and this reduced impact permitting the continued flourishing of habitats and ecosystems, the rural lifestyles of people that don’t necessarily want to lose their way of life for a more modern and high-technology lifestyle, and trade between people tends to reduce tensions among them and that increases wellbeing.

Those baseline considerations, in the order of presentation before, for these aspects of sustainability and cellulose, and cellulose itself can biodegrade, as the basis for natural fibres.

But how does it break down?

It begins with enzymes for the systematized, evolved, and natural degradation of cellulose from plant cells.[xxiii]^{,[xxiv],[xxv],[xxvi]}

[i] natural fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

[ii] man-made fibre. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

[iii] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Animal Fibres.

[iv] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Plant Fibres.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Nutrient Review. (2016). Cellulose.

[vii] Wild Fibres. (2016, February 15). Animal Fibres.

[viii] Nutrient Review. (2016). Cellulose.

[ix] Senese, F. (2015, August 17). What is cellulose?.

[x] sugar. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

[xi] Ibid.

[xii] Bailey, R. (2016, April 25). Plant Cells.

[xiii] eukaryote (2016) states:

any cell or organism that possesses a clearly defined nucleus. The eukaryotic cell has a nuclear membrane that surrounds the nucleus, in which the well-defined chromosomes (bodies containing the hereditary material) are located. Eukaryotic cells also contain organelles, including mitochondria (cellular energy exchangers), a Golgi apparatus (secretory device), an endoplasmic reticulum (a canal-like system of membranes within the cell), and lysosomes (digestive apparatus within many cell types).

eukaryote. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

[xiv] prokaryote (2016) state:

any organism that lacks a distinct nucleus and other organelles due to the absence of internal membranes. Bacteria are among the best-known prokaryotic organisms. The lack of internal membranes in prokaryotes distinguishes them from eukaryotes. The prokaryotic cell membrane is made up of phospholipids and constitutes the cell’s primary osmotic barrier. The cytoplasm contains ribosomes, which carry out protein synthesis, and a double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) chromosome, which is usually circular. 

prokaryote. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

[xv] Bailey, R. (2016, April 25). Plant Cells.

[xvi] Gatehouse, J. (2013, November 18). The nature of David Suzuki.

[xvii] CBC Radio-Canada Curio. (2016). The Nature of Things.

[xviii] Ratiocination (2016) states:

1:  the process of exact thinking :  reasoning

2:  a reasoned train of thought

ratiocinative play\-ˈō-sə-ˌnā-tiv, -ˈnä-\ adjective

Merriam-Webster (2016). Ratiocination.

[xix] Well-being (n.d.). states:

noun

1.a good or satisfactory condition of existence; a state characterized byhealth, happiness, and prosperity; welfare:

to influence the well-being of the nation and its people.

Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Well-being.

[xx] Ethics (n.d.). states:

The field of ethics (or moral philosophy) involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into three general subject areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Metaethics investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Metaethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves. Normative ethics takes on a more practical task, which is to arrive at moral standards that regulate right and wrong conduct. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others. Finally, applied ethics involves examining specific controversial issues, such as abortion, infanticide, animal rights, environmental concerns, homosexuality, capital punishment, or nuclear war.

Fieser, J. (n.d.). Ethics.

[xxi] The Golden Rule (n.d.) states:

The most familiar version of the Golden Rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Moral philosophy has barely taken notice of the golden rule in its own terms despite the rule’s prominence in commonsense ethics. This article approaches the rule, therefore, through the rubric of building its philosophy, or clearing a path for such construction. The approach reworks common belief rather than elaborating an abstracted conception of the rule’s logic. Working “bottom-up” in this way builds on social experience with the rule and allows us to clear up its long-standing misinterpretations. With those misconceptions go many of the rule’s criticisms.

The article notes the rule’s highly circumscribed social scope in the cultures of its origin and its role in framing psychological outlooks toward others, not directing behavior. This emphasis eases the rule’s “burdens of obligation,” which are already more manageable than expected in the rule’s primary role, socializing children. The rule is distinguished from highly supererogatory rationales commonly confused with it—loving thy neighbor as thyself, turning the other cheek, and aiding the poor,

homeless and afflicted. Like agape or unconditional love, these precepts demand much more altruism of us, and are much more liable to utopianism. The golden rule urges more feasible other-directedness and egalitarianism in our outlook.

Puka, B. (n.d.). The Golden Rule.

[xxii] Teaching Values. (2009). The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions.

[xxiii] Jin, X. (2010, November 28). Breaking Down Cellulose.

[xxiv] Nutrient Review. (2016). Cellulose.

[xxv] Bailey, R. (2016, April 25). Plant Cells.

[xxvi] enzyme (2016) states:

a substance that acts as a catalyst in living organisms, regulating the rate at which chemical reactions proceed without itself being altered in the process.

A brief treatment of enzymes follows. For full treatment, see protein: Enzymes.

The biological processes that occur within all living organisms are chemical reactions, and most are regulated by enzymes. Without enzymes, many of these reactions would not take place at a perceptible rate. Enzymes catalyze all aspects of cell metabolism. This includes the digestion of food, in which large nutrient molecules (such as proteins, carbohydrates, and fats) are broken down into smaller molecules; the conservation and transformation of chemical energy; and the construction of cellular macromolecules from smaller precursors. Many inherited human diseases, such as albinism and phenylketonuria, result from a deficiency of a particular enzyme.

enzyme. (2016). In Encyclopædia Britannica.

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