Tag Archive for 'bamboo fabric'

Overpackaging

Published on January 1, 2011 by a ok.

Happy New Year’s Day! It’s now 2011, the holidays have come, and just about gone. So too, have a lot of packages. In the small stream of boxes delivered by the various shipping outfits – mainly Fed Ex and the USPS – I was surprised to find some overpackaged deliveries arriving from outdoor gear suppliers.

I’m not the greenest of people, as some of my vegan friends could tell you. But I do make a conscious effort to do my part to leave the world in decent shape for future generations. In that vein, I try to regularly take the following small steps:

1. Recycle what I am certain can be recycled. (Some products, without a recycle code, are a bit nebulous.)

2. Turn out the lights when I leave a room.

3. Regularly use an endlessly re-usable, refillable stainless steel water bottle for my hydration needs. If you know of TapIt, then you know how easy it is to refill such a bottle from many locations in cities across the nation.

4. Carpool when practical, particularly when skiing with partners. This extends to plenty of hitchhiking.

5. Use re-usable canvas bags when shopping – not just for groceries, either.

6. Shy away from buying overpackaged products, typically encased (twice, or more) in oil-based plastics or other resources.

Since I spend time trying to follow these guidelines, some part of my expectation is that outdoor gear companies which sell or send products to me should also be looking to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Naturally, this entails Continue reading ‘Overpackaging’

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Bamboosa Fabric Test (Part 3)

Published on October 8, 2010 by a ok.

Summary

In Parts 1 & 2 of the Bamboosa Fabric Test, it became evident that Bamboosa’s shirts do a fine job of fighting off the microorganisms that cause odor. Further, it became clear that these shirts do not dry especially quickly. Basically, they take about as long to dry as a standard 100% cotton shirt.

Here are my complete conclusions on Bamboosa’s shirts, after testing them for six weeks:

I was impressed with the tiny size of the package that arrived, containing two Bamboosa shirts, both a blend of 70% viscose from bamboo / 30% cotton. The motto Reduce, Re-Use and Recycle is easier to apply when companies pay attention and don’t over-package their products.

Upon opening the package, I withdrew two shirts in size medium, both of which were substantially larger than any other medium-sized shirt that I own. As noted in Continue reading ‘Bamboosa Fabric Test (Part 3)’

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Bamboosa Fabric Test (Part 2)

Published on October 8, 2010 by a ok.

Moisture Retention

Requested by Mo from Bamboosa to test their viscose from bamboo shirts, I gave them a thorough testing. In Part 1 of the Bamboosa Fabric Test, the antimicrobial properties of some Bamboosa products were tested. For those interested in the short version, it goes like this: They passed with flying colors as far as odor-repelling properties are concerned.

After wearing Bamboosa’s shirts during numerous outdoor activities, it seemed that the shirt remained wet for a longer timeframe than I expected of a seemingly antimicrobial, performance shirt. I wasn’t certain if this was merely a perception or reality. Intrigued by this fabric and ever curious as to its other properties, I came up with a non-field fabric test to compare the moisture retention of bamboo to some of the other fabrics available.

The central question of the test was simple: Does viscose derived from bamboo have special properties when it comes to drying out after being soaked?

To find out Continue reading ‘Bamboosa Fabric Test (Part 2)’

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Bamboosa Fabric Test (Part 1)

Published on October 7, 2010 by a ok.

Bamboosa and The Federal Trade Commission

After writing a somewhat detracting article on the inconsistencies of the garment industry’s marketing of bamboo as a green fabric, I was contacted by Morris Saintsing, a partner at Bamboosa. Morris, or Mo, is an unabashed bamboo advocate, while I’m quite impartial to the fabric. As such, I agreed to test some of Bamboosa’s products to see if perhaps some claims made by the FTC were a little far reaching.

What did the Federal Trade Commission, the arm of the government in charge of protecting consumers, assert following its challenge of several bamboo industry players? Straight from their website:

The FTC wants you to know that the soft “bamboo” fabrics on the market today are rayon. –Most bamboo fibers are made into a pulp with the help of sodium hydroxide before they are spun into yarn. This pulp appears to be virtually indistinguishable from rayon, and the government is clearly concerned about mislabeling. So, the government wanted bamboo fabric tags to reflect their source material, by stating the fabric was either ‘viscose from bamboo,’ or ‘bamboo rayon.’ Check. Both shirts I received from Bamboosa came with tags which state they are 70% viscose from bamboo and 30% cotton.

The FTC also states that textiles made just from bamboo fiber don’t feel silky smooth. –I note that few products which I saw offered on the Bamboosa website are 100% bamboo, and the fabric combination they’ve come up with, a 70/30 viscose from bamboo/cotton blend, is as soft and smooth to the touch as virtually any fabric I’ve touched.

Further, the FTC claims: ‘There’s also no evidence that rayon made from bamboo retains the antimicrobial properties of the bamboo plant’ going on to add, ‘Even when bamboo is the “plant source” used to create rayon, no traits of the original plant are left in the finished product.’ –Ever mindful that the important part is how one defines antimicrobial, I looked it up in several different sources. Essentially, something is antimicrobial if it destroys or inhibits the growth of microorganisms. I definitely lack the scientific equipment to check for the presence of microscopic particles in clothing, but I also know that odor is a byproduct of microorganisms being present.

After promising Mo that I would put Bamboosa’s products to a real test, Continue reading ‘Bamboosa Fabric Test (Part 1)’

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