Bamboo Fabric: Environmentally Friendly or Not so Friendly

Bamboo fabric is billed as environmentally friendly, but it may not be all it is advertised to be.

Benefits of Bamboo Fabric

Bamboo has been very trendy and popular for use in flooring and other household products. Bamboo has also been gaining popularity as an environmentally friendly clothing fabric. It is true that bamboo fabric has many traits that make it better than synthetic fabrics. Bamboo fabric is quite a bit cheaper than silk or cashmere, but it has the comfortable, luxurious feel and the same beautiful drape as those fabrics have. Bamboo fabric is very durable and easy to care for. It can be laundered. Bamboo is also biodegradable and the bamboo plant, which is a grass as opposed to a tree, is one of the world's most sustainable resources. Bamboo plantations are great for reducing greenhouse gases.

Environmental Issues When Bamboo Is Made Into Clothing

The problem is in the processing. There are two primary types of processing being used for converting bamboo into fabric.

Mechanical processing of bamboo into fabric is not used very much because it is very laborious and therefore would add greatly to the cost of the final product. Environmentally, mechanical processing would be the preferred method. Natural enzymes are used to convert the bamboo into a soft substance that can be combed out and made into yarn.

Chemical processing is still the most common method of converting bamboo into clothing fabric. The chemical process used to convert bamboo to fabric is an environmental disaster. The bamboo leaves and woody parts are cooked in solvents. The most common solvents are sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide. Then they are bleached. Carbon disulfide is also used in processing rayon and workers who are exposed to it have been known to have side effects ranging from headaches to nerve damage and neural disorders. Sodium hydroxide, which is lye, can cause skin and eye irritations. Some experts state that because of the potential side effects to workers and the environment, this process is not environmentally friendly. Many of the bamboo clothing fabrics are manufactured in developing countries that do not have the same pollution control requirements as the United States. Since these chemicals are toxic, the result is often disastrous to the atmosphere and waterways.

Can Bamboo be processed into fabric in a more environmentally friendly way?

A chemical process that is now used to process wood cellulose into a fabric product called lyocell is thought to be very environmentally friendly. This process can be altered to process bamboo cellulose into fabric. Lyocell is marketed under the trade name of Tencell. The process uses N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide to dissolve cellulose. Then hydrogen peroxide is added as a stabilizer so that the cellulose can be hardened into fiber threads and spun into yarn. N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide is believed to be safe for humans and the process is called a "closed loop" process, meaning that only one percent of the chemicals escape into the environment. The rest are re-cycled and can be used in the process again. A few of the new manufacturers have begun to use this process for processing bamboo into fabric.

Nano technology is also being used to process bamboo clothing. A company called Greenyarn is using nano particles from bamboo charcoal to create bamboo clothing. Bamboo is turned into charcoal in an 800 degree oven. The nano particles are then embedded into other fabrics, such as cotton. However, the exact process is not known and the jury is still out on how this process would stack up environmentally.

What can environmentally conscious consumers do?

What about those popular ISO 9000 Quality and ISO 14000 Environmental certificates that we find on products? Doesn't that ensure us that everything is environmentally safe? According to Shellie & Michael Lackman of lotusorganics.com, the ISO certificates that you find on bamboo clothing (and other products) are not a guarantee that they are truly environmentally friendly. They believe that this is just a "red herring" that the industry is using because consumers do not realize that the ISO systems are only tools that help companies define their goals and provide methods to measure continual improvement. (This is a paraphrase of a quote you can find on the ISO 14000 website by clicking on the link.) The designations do not guarantee consumers that the companies have in fact met their goals or the industry or environmental standards. The Lackmans point out that many countries do not have the same environmental regulations as the United States and that some countries (such as China where much of the bamboo and many of the processing factories and clothing manufacturers are located) are not exactly forthcoming with the data that is given out to the public.

One thing that consumers who are concerned about buying clothing made from bamboo (or any environmentally friendly fabric) can do is to only buy those products that have an "organic, sustainable" certification from an independent company such as Oeko-Tex. According to the Lackmans, this certification is the most comprehensive, but it still only guarantees that a product is safe for consumers. There seems to be no way to be sure that a fabric has been processed using environmentally friendly methods, other than being aware of the facts and researching the product yourself.

The bottom line is, whether you are buying clothing made from bamboo or any other product that is billed as environmentally friendly, you may not be getting what you think you are.

Sources used:
blog connected with lotusorganics.com:
http://organicclothing.blogs.com/my_weblog/2007/09/bamboo-facts-be.html

www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1061