So, bamboo is beautiful. Fast growing, low-fertiliser and very space efficient. However, to turn it into clothing you have to do some very dark stuff to it.
Most bamboo clothing uses the viscose rayon process. This technique gained popularity in 1896 using wood pulp as the source material, and can make clothes, cellophane and other great things.
In this process you:
- Melt down the bamboo/wood chip in caustic soda (sounds horrific)
- Squidge it and air it (sounds ok)
- Put it in a vat of carbon disulfide (sounds maybe ok but is actually highly toxic)
- Then dissolve it in another caustic solution (because once wasn’t fun enough)
- Then this gunk is extruded through shower-head-like exits where it emerges as lovely thin strands of thread ready to make the perfect work blouse (ahhh finally finished)
- after which it lands in a bath of sulfuric acid (frown)
Anything that ends with bath of sulfuric acid isn’t going to be a good time. But once you wash off the acid you get some damn fine thread.
If there was no waste in the process it might be ok, however ~50% of the carbon disulfide is not recovered and there are difficulties in handling sulfuric acid and caustic soda.
Some smart cookies thought that if they label it as ‘bamboo’ then people would associate it with environmentally friendly. And this was true. It was so true that the US FTC has brought 13 cases from 1962 to 2013 against various companies walking on the wrong side of this line including Amazon, Macys, Kmart and Sears.
But is there a better way?
Some smart Austrians invented Tencel® which uses the ‘lyocell’ method to produce rayon.
- Lyocell uses the 4-methylmorpholine 4-oxide which isn’t a very nice substance, but can be used in a closed loop system (no waste!) and at the end the thread drops into a water bath – rather than sulfuric-freakin’-acid.
- Use of sustainably managed eucalyptus tree farms rather than bamboo as it ‘yields the best quality fiber with the least amount of waste‘.
- No use of formaldehyde at the end when perhaps others would be tempted to use formaldehyde.
So sounds like the best of a bad situation. It could be the case that these fibers become important as land and water are unable to satisfy our hunger for cotton and flax (for linen), but less fertile land can still bang out heaps of eucalyptus trees and bamboo.
The struggling-to-be-sustainable-and-still-make-a-profit behemoth Patagonia have thrown their weight behind Tencel® and use it in their clothing. They address that bamboo can be made into a linen-like fabric but that they use hemp for that purpose.
Other actions that make Patagonia a good egg:
- Patagonia merchandise can be returned for new merchandise credits. The used merchandise gets cleaned and repaired and sold on their “Worn Wear” website.
- Since 1985 Patagonia has given 1% of their total sales to environmental groups.
- They try to be nice to the sheep and geese that give them their wool and down but apparently that is not the easiest thing
So overall stop buying bamboo clothing, sheets and towels. Try for a natural fiber, or if you have mega dollars to spend go crazy at a Patagonia store.
Sustainable Talk 