Fab Fabrics: The Pros and Cons of Bamboo
Bamboo is getting a lot of hype lately as an Earth-friendly fabric. Is it everything it’s cracked up to be?
[Creative Commons photo by Joi]
This question has been nagging me lately, so I did a little bit of digging. It looks like there are some upsides and some downsides to bamboo fabric. Let’s start with the bad news first and talk about the good news last.
- » See also: Fab Fabrics: Organic Cotton Screenprinted by Showpony
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The Cons
The main issue with bamboo is how many companies turn the stalks into fiber. It’s made in a similar way to rayon. The plant is mashed up and basically “cooked” in harsh chemicals like sodium hydroxide (another term for lye) and carbon disulfide. According to Michael over at Organic Clothing:
Breathing low levels of carbon disulfide can cause tiredness, headache and nerve damage. Carbon disulfide has been shown to cause neural disorders in workers at rayon manufacturers. Low levels of exposure to sodium hydroxide can cause irritation of the skin and eyes.
Nasty stuff! The process for creating and bleaching bamboo fabric sounds like it can be pretty toxic.
One of the major claims about bamboo is that it grows quickly, making it a sustainable resource. Its recent explosion in popularity has been putting bamboo’s quick growing properties to the test. Overharvesting is such a problem now that “many species of the plant are on the verge of extinction.” According to Eco Geek, there is a biotech company working on a way to save these waning species of bamboo.
Yikes. Those are some serious downsides! But it’s not that easy. There are a lot of good things about bamboo fabric.
The Pros
Bamboo is actually not a tree, it’s a grass. Like hemp, it does not require harsh chemical pesticides and fertilizers and it actually helps improve the soil where it’s grown! It requires very little water to grow and absorbs more greenhouse gases and releases more oxygen than many species of timber trees.
Not all bamboo uses the harsh chemical process described above. Some companies, like Boston-based Greenyarn are finding more ecofriendly means to turn bamboo into fabric. Other companies are using a process that not only requires more benign chemicals, but the processing is “closed loop,” meaning that over 99% of the chemicals are captured and used again. Look for certifications like Oeko-Tex, Soil Association, SKAL or KRAV. These are reputable third-party certifiers that verify if a company’s practices are environmentally friendly.
My Take
So how green is bamboo? You’ll have to do a little label-reading if you want to avoid the stuff made with carbon disulfide and lye. I think you come out ahead when you’re comparing it to conventional cotton, because of the pesticides and fertilizers that cotton requires, and it’s definitely a better choice than conventional fleece or polyester. If you’ve got the option to use organic cotton or hemp, though, you’re better off opting for that.
The really good news is that the more we spread the word about bamboo’s pros and cons, the more companies will have to listen to our concerns.
I appreciate you doing this research. I think that once big companies see how eco-concious we are becoming, they will have no choice but to follow us.
[...] to be? That question had been bugging me for a while, and I decided to find the answer for myself. You can check out what I learned at my post over on Crafting a Green World! There’s some good news, and there’s some bad news. Share This [...]
[...] talked last year about the pros and cons of bamboo. Like hemp, growing bamboo is easier on the environment than conventional fibers such as cotton. [...]