Don't Get Bamboozled by Bamboo…. There are more Sustainable Alternatives

Bamboo fabric has been paraded as one of the Sustainable alternatives to ‘resource guzzling’ cotton or polyester - a ‘polluting’ petrochemical derivative. With fame came detractors, and soon we were made to realize that Bamboo fibre production process was indeed ‘unsustainable’.

- Manoj John

Growing of bamboo grass was pro-nature with incredible set of benefits like lower requirement of water, fertilizer, or pesticides, and sequesters a large amount of carbon dioxide, absorbing five times more carbon dioxide and releasing 35% more oxygen than similar plants. It’s also naturally regenerating, so harvesting bamboo still allows the plant to survive. However, the truth is that the process of converting this fibre present in bamboo stalks to fabric is ‘chemically toxic’ for our environment. The process involves dissolving the harvested bamboo stalks using strong chemical solvents like sodium hydroxide and carbon disulfide. This process is also known as hydrolysis alkalization which is combined with multi-phase bleaching.

In most of the factories, the revival of solvent is 50%. This means the other 50% is discarded into the environment. The production processes for bamboo and other regenerated fibres using hydrolysis alkalization is not considered sustainable or environment friendly because it poses severe health risks and pollutes the surrounding environment. This process is similar to the production of Rayon from wood chips and plant-based materials, and should be ideally called bamboo-rayon with no residual natural properties of bamboo.

The ideal ‘sustainable bamboo fibre’ can be achieved only through a mechanical extraction process that involves combing out the fibres and spinning these into threads, which is then called bamboo linen. This is labour-intensive and offers low production output. Given these inefficiencies, the cheaper alternative is the chemical-intensive alternative.