Does Bamboo Clothing Qualify For Sustainable Living Standards?

Does Bamboo Clothing Qualify For Sustainable Living Standards?

By:


Detractors of bamboo clothing, which is considered organic clothing, have made a variety of claims namely:

1. The producers of it use fertilizers and pesticides on crops to increase productivity.

2. Land is clear cut to produce large monocultures of it, reducing biodiversity.

3. Harsh chemicals used during production are harmful to people and the environment.

4. The production process uses excessive energy.

These are all valid concerns and I will share my findings.

Almost all bamboo rayon is produced in China. This is logical given that over 80 percent of global bamboo stands exist in Asia. Unlike cotton, it needs no outside inputs such as irrigation or fertilizer. Its natural resistance to disease means no pesticides or insecticides are needed.

A mature Moso bamboo stand (the species used to produce textiles) has an average yield of 139,000 Kg per ha (Isagi et al, 1997). Compare that to cotton which yields an average of 845 Kg per ha (Kooistra and Termorshuizen, 2006) and you see that it can produce a lot more than cotton does, with less.

During manufacture, raw bamboo is pulped, treated with sodium hydroxide and heat to break the pulp down. Carbon disulfide is added to provide structure and the mixture is fed through spinnerets to produce fibers. In China, all of the fiber is produced by one company, Jigao Chemicals, and it is all certified by the US National Organic Program (NOP).

Any bamboo crops certified as organic by a legitimate body such as NOP cannot employ such practices as clear cutting, synthetic fertilizers or synthetic pesticides. With this certification, the consumer is assured that it has been cultured in a sustainable manner.

It is true the production of bamboo clothing uses harsh chemicals but let me put that in perspective. All of the bamboo rayon in China is produced by one company from three facilities. As such, there are only three, centralized discharge points to deal with. Make sure these three discharge points are well treated and any impact to the environment and the workers is mitigated.

On the flip side, how do you control the spread of pesticides applied by aerial or land based spraying dispersed over several hundred or thousand acres of land used for conventional farming? Simply not possible because the escape of pesticides into rivers, streams, lakes and, ground water is inevitable.

And there is a significant human toll. For example, each year between 25 and 77 million farmers are poisoned by pesticides of which 1 million require hospitalization and at least 40,000 die (WHO, 2002). That seems a high price to pay to keep us in fashion.

In 2007 a study by CleanMetrics Corporation was commissioned to evaluate the green house gas, called GHG, production for each major textile group in production today. The table below summarizes our findings:

FiberGHG Emissions
(C02 EQ/Kg Product)1
Bamboo Rayon2.18
Organic Cotton1.31
Hemp20.79
Conventional Cotton3.39
Polyester4.35

1. Farm to gate GHG estimates including CO2 emissions resulting from fertilizer and pesticide production (in the case of conventional cotton), C02 emissions from the soil and CO2 sequestration by the bamboo and cotton plants.

2. CO2 sequestration data could not be found for hemp. As such, the GHG value shown here is higher then actual.

Of the major eco-friendly textiles, bamboo rayon has the highest GHG output but it is still 50 percent lower then polyester and 36 percent lower then conventional cotton.

Its low GHG production, zero requirement for pesticides, fertilizers or irrigation and amazing yield makes bamboo clothing a legitimate eco-friendly option.

There is currently over 31 million hectares of land under conventional cotton using 30 million Kg of pesticides each year. For every 100 thousand hectares of this land converted to bamboo, hemp or organic cotton, we eliminate about 100 thousand Kg of pesticides, reduce GHG output by approximately 2 million Kg and save approximately 1,000 lives. We literally can make a difference one shirt at a time!

About the Author:
Adrian Desbarats, the author, has a passionate desire for balance between nature and human needs. A biologist, he started FashionandEarth.com to provide women with Earth friendly, stylish fashions. Join the virtual community of women who are passionate about saving the Earth and protecting their health, and receive recipes, news and information about sustainable living at Organic Clothing



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


Tags: ,

|

Loading...
Related....
Videos...

Recent UnCategorized Articles

Comments

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search for it!

Loading

Site Navigation:

Copyright 2005-2011 ArticleSnatch, LLC - All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service.