Bamboo fabric is sustainability cosplay

It won’t surprise you that claims about the sustainability miracle of bamboo clothing are bullshit.

When I was a freelancer, I wrote for a company that offered carbon offsetting for e-commerce shops. I got to research and write a lot about how brands use greenwashing to appear more sustainable in their business practices than they really are. This happens in most industries, but it’s particularly prevalent in fashion. 

I love this topic because there’s an ongoing “bamboo is a sustainable miracle fabric” marketing effort, so lots of folks are being misinformed by Big Bamboo^TM on purpose. Reality, of course, is more complicated. I just think consumers deserve accurate info so they’re not causing harm when they think they’re being eco-conscious. 

What’s wrong with rayon?

So the plant bamboo is pretty phenomenal, particularly compared to cotton. It grows crazy fast, doesn’t need pesticides, regenerates from its own roots, requires little water, takes up little space, captures a bunch of carbon emissions… I get why sustainability people like it. I really do. 

The problem is turning the hard, fibrous bamboo plant into something that can be woven into fabric. It’s an intensive industrial process involving:

• Soaking the bamboo in sodium hydroxide (lye)
• Dissolving it in carbon disulphide to create viscose (a viscous solution)
• Forcing the viscose through sulphuric acid to coagulate into filaments
• Cleaning the filaments (this uses a lot of water, btw)
• Spinning it into fibres ready to weave/knit

The resulting fabric is called rayon or rayon viscose. There are variations of this process using other trees, creating cupro, modal, and viscose. Together, these are marketed as natural fibres, more sustainable than cotton and cheaper than silk. I just don’t think they’re much better, tbh.

The chemicals used in this process are scary. Lye and sulphuric acid cause serious burns. Carbon disulphide is neurotoxic. Workers exposed to it get nerve damage, heart disease, and reproductive harm. Plus, 30-50% of the carbon disulphide used in this process is released as toxic wastewater into the atmosphere or waterways near facilities, so the communities downstream share in the harm.   

This is why I find the greenwashing of fabrics made from bamboo so infuriating, industrial processing always comes at a cost to humans and the environment. Just because the raw material isn’t bad, that doesn’t mean the end product is good. Let’s just be honest about how things are made. 

Harm reduction in my man-made cellulosic fibres

There is no finished fabric called bamboo. So, if you see 100% bamboo on your fabric tag, the brand is scamming and it’s most likely rayon. There are options for lower impact fabrics made from bamboo though. The lyocell process is way less harmful than the viscose one. Lyocell processing uses a non-toxic, organic solvent instead of carbon disulphide, and is a closed loop, meaning no chemical waste is released into the environment. The finished fabric is usually called bamboo lyocell or Tencel Lyocell from bamboo, depending on who makes it.  

It is possible to get better rayon, look for certifications like FSC, GRTS, and OEKO-TEX^® 100. FSC is a sustainable forestry certification, OEKO-TEX^® 100 means the finished product contains nothing harmful to human health. GRTS certifies the item was made with responsible fibres, adhering to environmental, chemical, human rights, and traceability criteria throughout the process from raw material to finished product. 

Like a lot of things wrong with the fashion industry, greenwashing bamboo fabric is a issue of regulation. It just shouldn’t be possible for companies to endanger workers and pollute their environment, then turn around and tell us the finished product is sustainable. I’m no isolationist, but this is a major issue with globalization. Developing countries are incentivized (or coerced) to have lax environmental and worker protections to attract manufacturing, so the rest of us can enjoy cheaper consumer products. 

We all know how exploitation works. This doesn’t get resolved by you and I making better consumer choices. We can, of course, reduce the demand for these fake-sustainable products though our spending habits, but like, workers in textile factories deserve safe conditions. 

This stuff is all very overwhelming, so I do have to fight my more nihilistic urges. It’s okay if all I can do is make a slightly better choice today than I could yesterday. That’s still a net positive.