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Canada Business News and Press Releases
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(EMAILWIRE.COM, February 02, 2010 ) Emyvale, PEI - Adrian Desbarats, President of Fashion and Earth, began his discussion by saying "Detractors of bamboo, used for organic clothing, have made a variety of claims namely:
1. Bamboo producers use fertilizers and pesticides on crops to increase productivity.
2. Land is clear cut to produce large bamboo monocultures reducing biodiversity.
3. Harsh chemicals used during production are harmful to people and the environment.
4. The bamboo production process uses excessive energy.
These are all valid concerns and I will share my findings."
Almost
Almost all bamboo rayon is produced in China. This is logical given that over 80% of global bamboo stands exist in Asia. Unlike cotton, bamboo needs no outside inputs – no irrigation, no fertilizer. Its natural resistance to disease means no pesticides or insecticides are needed.
A mature Moso bamboo stand (the species used to produce textiles) has an average yield of 139,000 Kg per ha (Isagi et al, 1997). Compare that to cotton which yields an average of 845 Kg per ha (Kooistra and Termorshuizen, 2006) and you see that bamboo can produce a lot with less.
During manufacture, raw bamboo is pulped, treated with sodium hydroxide and heat to break the pulp down. Carbon disulfide is added to provide structure and the mixture is fed through spinnerets to produce fibers.
In China, all bamboo fiber is produced by one company, Jigao Chemicals. This company supplies all the bamboo rayon used in Fashion and EarthÂ’s clothing. All of the bamboo used by Jigao is certified by the US National Organic Program (NOP).
Any bamboo crops certified as organic by a legitimate body such as NOP cannot employ such practices as clear cutting, synthetic fertilizers or synthetic pesticides. With this certification, the consumer is assured that the bamboo has been cultured in a sustainable manner.
Mr. Desbarats continued "ItÂ’s true the production of bamboo clothing uses harsh chemicals but letÂ’s put that in perspective. All of the bamboo rayon in China is produced by one company from three facilities. As such, there are only three, centralized discharge points to deal with. Make sure these three discharge points are well treated and any impact to the environment and the workers is mitigated.
On the flip side, how do you control the spread of pesticides applied by aerial or land-based spraying dispersed over several hundred or thousand acres? Simply not possible –escape of pesticides into rivers, streams, lakes and, ground water is inevitable.
And there is a significant human toll. For example, each year between 25 – 77 million farmers are poisoned by pesticides of which 1 million require hospitalization and at least 40,000 die (WHO, 2002). That seems a high price to pay to keep us in fashion."
In 2007 Fashion and Earth commissioned a study by CleanMetrics Corporation to evaluate the green house gas (GHG) production for each major textile group in production today. The table below summarizes our findings:
Fiber GHG Emissions
(C02 EQ / Kg Product)1
Bamboo Rayon 2.18
Organic Cotton 1.31
Hemp2 0.79
Conventional Cotton 3.39
Polyester 4.35
1 Farm to gate GHG estimates including CO2 emissions resulting from fertilizer / pesticide production (in the case of conventional cotton), C02 emissions from the soil and CO2 sequestration by the bamboo and cotton plants.
2 CO2 sequestration data could not be found for hemp. As such, the GHG value shown here is higher then actual.
Of the major eco-friendly textiles, bamboo rayon has the highest GHG output but it is still 50% lower then polyester and 36% lower then conventional cotton.
Its low GHG production, zero requirement for pesticides, fertilizers or irrigation and amazing yield makes bamboo clothing a legitimate eco-friendly option.
He concluded with "There is currently over 31 million hectares of land under conventional cotton using 30 million Kg of pesticides each year. For every 100 thousand hectares of this land converted to bamboo, hemp or organic cotton, we eliminate about 100 thousand Kg of pesticides, reduce GHG output by approximately 2 million Kg and save approximately 1,000 lives. We literally can make a difference one shirt at a time!"
Adrian Desbarats, President of Fashion and Earth, beginning with a background as a biologist, has a passionate desire to balance the needs of the environment with the needs of humans. Visit http://www.fashionandearth.com to shop for stylish and eco-friendly clothing for women.
Join a community of women who care about the future of their families, and the future of our planet. Visit http://www.fashionandearth.com.
Fashion and Earth
Adrian Desbarats
902-675-2217
adesbarats@fashionandearth.com 
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