If we’re going to talk about bamboo t shirts, we need to start with the bamboo itself. Because bamboo is naturally resistant to bacteria and fungus, it can be grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. Bamboo is the perfect organic crop.
Bamboo grows incredibly fast and can be harvested in 3-5 years. Classified as a grass, it is the fastest growing grass on Earth and can shoot up a yard or more per day. Acre for acre, Bamboo plantations absorb 5 times the amount of carbon dioxide and produce 35% more oxygen than trees.
In the last few years, bamboo fabric has been made into t-shirts, dresses, swimsuits, you name it. People love it for the way it feels, the way it drapes over the body, and the way it breathes. It feels like nothing else. But we can talk about the great qualities of bamboo, and the great qualities of bamboo fabric, but what you rarely hear is the word: rayon.
But the fact is this: bamboo clothing is made from rayon.
Is this a bad thing? No, of course not. Rayon happens to be a great fabric. So why is the rayon aspect downplayed? To find out, we need to look at the history of rayon and how it is made.
Rayon came about as a result of inventors looking for a cheaper alternative to silk. In 1891, Charles Cross of England, along with Edward Bevan and Clayton Beadle, found a way to make rayon through what they called a viscose process. The process involved heavy chemical processing of wood pulp, from which the rayon fabric was made.
Rayon became very popular and large industrial plants were set up to produce it. But problems developed with hazardous waste, among them carbon disulphide, which ended up polluting the air and groundwater. The Avtex Rayon Fibers Plant in Virginia, for example, was eventually shut down in 1989 and declared by the EPA as a Superfund Site. It cost millions of dollars and years to clean up that site.
So that, in essence, is the problem. We have on one hand a great organic raw material, bamboo, and on the other hand we have a great fabric, bamboo rayon. But the conversion process can be an environmental problem if it isn’t handled correctly.
So how do we know? Who’s to say if any particular rayon plant around the world is handling its waste in a responsible manner? Is anybody watching? Do any of the clothing manufacturers care about the source of the rayon they are buying? Or are clothing companies just concerned with a great, new “green marketing” campaign wrapped around the great qualities of bamboo?
This isn’t far-fetched. In the past, how many clothing companies bought from sweatshops just to save a buck? Right now, how many bamboo clothing companies buy cheap rayon, and never question how it’s being made or what happens to the waste products?
The FTC recently issued a warning about the subject, and charged 4 companies with deceptive advertising. The FTC said, basically, that by leaving out the part about rayon, and just promoting the green aspects of bamboo alone, clothing companies were deceiving the public. In other words, maybe bamboo clothing wasn’t all that green.