Bamboo-zled

One of my loyal readers posed a question in response to my last blog entry about cotton's environmental impact: what about bamboo? A lot of people are asking that these days, and the answer is complicated.

Bamboo grows very quickly (up to a foot a day!) with little pesticide and herbicide use and little water. Hence its reputation as an eco-friendly alternative to cotton. Bamboo also produces 30-35% more oxygen than a hardwood forest on the same amount of land, and is an excellent soil erosion inhibitor. But if you've ever seen bamboo growing, you know that it doesn't so much resemble a soft fabric as a bunch of hollow sticks. The controversy about bamboo stems from the process of turning the stalks into wearable clothing.

National Geographic's The Green Guide has this to say:

According to Morris Saintsing, sales development and operations partner of bamboo clothing retailer Bamboosa, all bamboo stalk intended for clothing in the United States is converted into raw fiber at one factory in China. "This is a proprietary process and they have a patent on it," says Saintsing. "It's hard to find out what is going on from an R&D standpoint," he adds. Other sources have compared it to the viscose process used on rayon, which involves sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide, both of which are caustic, and carbon disulfide has been known to cause breathing and sleeping problems among workers. Sodium hydroxide can threaten aquatic wildlife when released into groundwater and streams. Saintsing said that greener ways of creating bamboo fabrics are being tested, but those generally result in a linen-like product that doesn't have the silky texture people are looking for in clothing. Few of the alternatives are in use, but "We're doing what we can to make it a greener process," he says.

Like many decisions we have to make in our quest to be more environmentally friendly, finding green clothing is tricky. Bamboo may not be a perfect choice because of its controversial manufacturing practices. As consumers, we need to pay attention to how our clothes are made so that we can exert pressure on companies when their processes don't match our values. Just as you would try on clothes to make sure they fit, investigate how that bamboo shirt is made before you spend your money on it.