I’m starting to do some research on sustainable fabrics and am coming up (not surprisingly) with mixed reviews. I was really interested in bamboo because it has a really beautiful look to it, and it gets a lot of hype as a “green fabric.” From what I understand bamboo is good for a number of reasons, primarily because of the way in which it is grown: farmers don’t need to use pesticides on it, it grows close together, doesn’t deplete the soil as much as cotton, and eats up way more greenhouse gases than cotton per acre. Bamboo also is naturally anti-microbial, resists odor, and has a great weight and sheen to it. The downside is that once the bamboo is harvested it takes a chemical intensive process to break down the fibers and make them into textiles (it’s really not astonishing that it takes some heavy duty chemical processing to turn a woody reed into a soft, stretchy luxury fabric). The process uses lots of ammonia, and not only are the leftover chemicals dangerous, but the process causes neural damage for people that work in the bamboo processing facilities. Also, bamboo is only grown and processed for textiles in China, so, if buying locally is a concern, which it ought to be, bamboo doesn’t make the cut. Perhaps United States manufacturers just aren’t willing to sacrifice their employee’s neural systems for the greater good. Some people are so selfish.
I did end up buying some bamboo fabric (jersey knit) to try it out, and I love working with it, but it’s too bad that after doing some research on it, I feel that using bamboo doesn’t really absolve me from very much environmental guilt. Plus, it feels a little disingenuous to tout its “greenness” in my product descriptions. So, for now, I am trying out bamboo and looking around for some better alternatives if they are out there. Anyone else who wants to weigh in on this issue is very welcome.
Ok, now if I could ask you to put away all the moral ambiguity for the moment, here are some pics of the really cute tops I made out my first few yards of bamboo fabric (in sunshine! What a great color)
I’ve also used raw silk, but I’m not sure what the sustainability issues are with silk. I know that lots of little worms die in the process, but I’m not sure what the wider environmental impacts are. I’m inclined to think that killing a lot of worms (which must have fairly short life spans anyway) is not as big of a deal as dumping huge amounts of chemicals into the environment. Maybe if I got to know some worms better I would feel differently.
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