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Eco-Friendly Bamboo T-Shirts: Not Really

Monday 18th of February 2008 02:04:24 AM

On a blog at Los Angeles Times in the US, Siel discusses the benefits and disadvantages of bamboo t-shirts. They may seem like they are environmentally friendly but they are not as green as many think. The biggest eco part of this t-shirt is that they are made from bamboo. Bamboo naturally grows at a fast rate even when you don't place any fertilization, chemicals or pesticides on them. This means that there is always an ample amount of bamboo available to make the shirts. Another great thing about these are that they are antibacterial because of properties in the plant. They are also antifungal and do not hold sweat as other cotton t-shirts can. This means that you won't have to wash it as much as a cotton shirts which saves on energy.

The not so eco-friendly part and the biggest part is in the way that they are made. The t-shirts are made using the bamboo but the process is highly pollutant and harmful to the workers manufacturing the shirts. They use a hydrolysis alkalization process to soak the bamboo leaves and shoots in sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide. It is then placed in a bleaching solution in which it goes through many phases before it is complete. All of these chemicals give off a harmful vapor that could result in health problems for the individuals working.

Even though the bamboo shirts are not completely eco-friendly, they are on the right path. If they can find a better way to make them then they would fall nicely into the environmentally safe world of eco-fashion.

(c) Gábor Weisz,www.sxc.hu