The Great Bamboo Lie

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Four companies that use bamboo for clothing and other household fabrics were charged by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for deceptive advertising techniques: claiming that the fabrics are made from “bamboo fiber”, are manufactured using an environmentally friendly process, are naturally antimicrobial, and will biodegrade. In point of fact, says the FTC, “bamboo fiber” is really rayon, the same fiber invented in the 1850s. Rayon is traditionally made from wood pulp, but it can be made from any pulpy substance, including bamboo, and the FTC had issues with these companies selling rayon under a misleading label that made it seem more eco-friendly than wood-based rayon. Furthermore, they add, both wood-based and bamboo-based rayon are manufactured using air-polluting caustic soda, or lye, which is not environmentally friendly and destroys any antimicrobial characteristics that may have existed in raw bamboo pulp. Regarding claims of biodegradation, the FTC says that bamboo will not biodegrade if tossed into a landfill, where most of our trash ends up.

The FTC is not the first to criticize bamboo-clothing manufacturers for advertising the fiber as eco-friendly when the process of converting the pulp into fiber employs such caustic chemicals. In a recent article for the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a representative from the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is currently working with textile mills to lessen their environmental impacts, recommended that any designer looking for more eco-friendly fabrics should avoid bamboo. And the GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW has, more than once, criticized the claims made about bamboo, and especially bamboo-clothing and I believe that the GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW was, in fact, one of the first to take an issue with the promotion of bamboo and especially bamboo-based textiles as greenwash.

Bamboo is always claimed to have an environmental upside in that grows quickly, replenishing itself in as little as 5 years after it has been harvested always compared with 15 to 20 years for trees, though no one seems to look at proper coppice rotation in this matter. It is said to require few pesticides and very little water. I have yet to see wood grown in most environments to require pesticide and for water, well Nature takes care of that with trees.

Bamboo clothing is not – really – natural and neither is it biodegradable or compostable. It is a viscose material and the same as Rayon with the only difference being that one is made from wood pulp the other is made from bamboo pulp. Same difference.

Someone from the green movement stated in response to the US FTC ruling with regards to bamboo clothing that no clothing, not even from natural fiber biodegrades. I would like to dispute that fact and suggest to that person to try to see what happens to a cotton T-shirt or a wool blanket after a year or two in the compost heap. They will have disintegrated. How do I know? I've done it!

Bamboo fiber bowls, cutlery, etc., are still being promoted in the UK, even and especially on green (trade) events as the be all in green but it is a lie plain and simple.

While traditional bamboo products, including furniture, made in countries where this grass grows are fine and good it is not good and sustainable to import them thousands of miles to Europe and the USA and then call them eco-friendly products. Such imports are, in the same way as bamboo clothing, flatware, etc., are not green nor sustainable.

It we want to be eco-conscious and sustainable then furniture should be from homegrown wood (or better still from reclaimed wood) and the same goes for flooring and treen ware. And as far as clothing is concerned this should be from real fiber or if man-made then it should be marked and marketed as such. Bamboo for clothing is Rayon, which is a viscose material and thus, regardless of the fact that it is either wood or bamboo pulp, man-made. Period!

When it comes to bamboo flooring we encounter the bamboo lie and that on a real heavy level. Bamboo flooring is but a laminate flooring type, like wood laminate flooring, and is not green and environmentally friendly at all regardless of the growth rate of bamboo. You cannot cut bamboo into planks or slabs as bamboo is hollow in the round and a lot of heat and other energy, plus powerful glues, are required to make this kind of flooring. It is also not as hard and hard wearing as normal hardwood flooring. It is greenwash in the extreme and it is time that the truth be told and broadcast far and wide.

If you want green flooring – aside from a “dirt” floor – then choose hardwood and ideally here reclaimed hardwood flooring. Now that is green and sustainable.

If you want sustainable clothing then go for real fiber or recycled fiber materials and, ideally, go pre-used from thrift stores. I have not bought new clothing, bar underwear and socks (I would never go as far as buying them pre-owned), for I do not know how long. And, when the clothes really come to the end of their lives then reuse them for cleaning rags and such like before condemning the material, finally, to the waste stream or, if made of truly natural materials, to the compost heap to return to the soil.

The greatest problem that we are facing as consumers who want to be environmentally conscious and do good to the Planet is the amount of greenwash that is about and whose misleading claims are not just misleading but outright lies, such as in the case of bamboo textiles and bamboo flooring, for example. We must, thus, arm ourselves with the knowledge and combat greenwash wherever we encounter it.

© 2014

Natural Home Guide

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Natural Home Guide from www.vine.com. Here you can find room-by-room tips and product suggestions, so you can create a comfortable, inviting and happy natural home of your own.

Bamboo is, once again, greenwashed in this guide. While the material is indeed, when used as it comes, a very sustainable material but when it comes to chopping board and such then local hardwoods, such as oak, sycamore, etc., is a much better and way more sustainable choice than bamboo. Do no get fooled.

Bamboo, while being a fast growing grass the plants of which can reach forest proportions, comes in round hollow stems and hence planks cannot be cut from it.

Any chopping board and other flat items are created by the use of energy and even glues and thus the entire green and sustainable claims go right out of the window here.

There are bamboo products and then there are bamboo products. Those that are made in traditional ways and processes in the way that they are used by the natives of the countries where bamboo grows are the good products; the rest is greenwash. Don't fall for it!

Other products, not necessarily in this guide, also engage in greenwash, not just the bamboo brigade, in that they claim to be so very green when they, however, resist to remove chemicals such as 1,4-dioxane from their cleaning products, as in the case of Ecover.

Know what's what and get informed as to what is in so-called green and eco products and how they are made. Don't fall for the claims by the manufacturers and proponents.

Also, instead of running to the stores to buy products made from recycled materials consider reuse and repurposing and upcycling stuff first yourself. Only then go for buying such products. There is no need to go and buy a pencil bin made from recycled steel when you might as well use a cleaned up tin can for this task. Or, instead of rushing out to buy a set of recycled glass storage jars use some that come free with products that you buy. You have, after all, paid for those anyway and thus if you toss them into the recycling bin you waste your money.

You can also make your own counter/windowsill peely-bin from a large tin can with, is you so desire, a wire handle attached. As you should be tossing that stuff into the compost anyway at the end of the day there is no need for a lid though I am sure you can find something that will fit for that purpose too.

Rethink the use of your dryer when it comes to doing the laundry. Consider the good old washing line or the pop-up dryer for the outdoors. Let wind and sun do the drying for you. Indoors there is always, in winter or such, the heating, be it using a drying rack near the stove or the radiators themselves. It also add humidity to the home, which is very useful if you are using a central heating.

Make reusing, repurposing and upcycling the first choice when wishing to green your home and life; not buying “green” products.

http://www.vine.com/naturalhomeguide

© 2013

The Great Bamboo Con

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Green consumers are being conned all over the pace with the claim that bamboo is a very eco-friendly material, especially in the form of flooring, plywood and such for the building trade, or as a fabric.

Nothing could, in fact, be further from the truth.

However, “eco-stores” and green media keep harping on and on about the supposed eco-friendliness and the sustainability of this fast growing grass that can be used, in some ways, like hardwood.

While bamboo is fine when it is used as it always has been in the countries where it grows, for containers and whatever else, made by hand without any real “additives”, when it is being made flooring to – supposedly – be as good as real hardwood flooring and more environmentally sound then greenwash hits.

Bamboo does not come in planks. It is a hollow grass, though rather hard. Thus it has to be turned into sheets and this takes a great deal of energy and also chemicals.

In other words, bamboo flooring is nothing more than laminate flooring, using bamboo rather than sheets of hardwood. Where is the green factor here? There is none. It is as bad for the environment as is wood laminate, period.

Bamboo plywood is recently also being praised as being an environmentally friendly product for the building industry. Since when is any plywood, whether from FSC certified wood or bamboo, environmentally friendly? The glues and resins used certainly are not.

Now we come to bamboo clothing. To make a fiber from bamboo that can be spun and woven it must be created and that is done in the same way as viscose made from wood and used for Rayon. Anyone thinking green product might like to check out how viscose is produced. It should be a real eyeopener.

When it comes to items of tableware and kitchen stuff made from bamboo then those could be seen as green as long as they are made as they have been for centuries in the country where bamboo grows and has been used traditionally to make all manner of things.

Bamboo chopsticks certainly fall under sustainability, as do other traditional products but anything that is created using machinery, glues, resins, and other processes, the story changes.

All in all the greenwash of bamboo is a rather serious issue in the green field that we must conquer and the record must be set straight.

Unfortunately this does not tally with the ringing of the cash registers and producers and merchants vehemently reject any of the factors that we keep raising as to bamboo being not as green and sustainable a product as they claim.

It is all very much the same as with the “Eco-Button”; but you all know the story by now, I guess.

There is so much greenwash about that all I can suggest here, aside from exposing it, that the buyer beware.

© 2010