A friend of mine read my blog about eco-friendly clothing the other day and passed along an article from the Wall Street Journal, “Picking Apart Bamboo Couture“.
A quote from the WSJ article is “When I looked below the surface, though, I found that bamboo fabric is less “eco” and “sustainable” than it seems. The bamboo used in textiles has to be heavily manipulated to go from stem to store. To create fabric, it’s chopped up and dissolved in toxic solvents—the same process that recycles wood scraps into viscose or rayon. Indeed, bamboo fabric technically is rayon.”
Apparently the FTC sued 4 bamboo clothing manufacturers because they said bamboo was natural even though it isn’t because it is created by chemists.
We are going to keep running into things like this until the industry becomes more mature and regulated. For now, I would stick with the other eco-friendly materials like Organic cotton, hemp, and soy if you are going to buy eco-friendly clothing.
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