WHY BAMBOO?
Bamboo is a remarkable and highly versatile natural resource. Using it to make bamboo clothing is just one of its many possible applications. Bamboo has been utilised in Asia for many centuries in a wide range of uses, such as in cooking, construction, transport, and medicine – as well as textiles.
Only relatively recently the Western world has discovered how bamboo offers a wide range of benefits and eco-friendly solutions to many of our modern requirements.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of bamboo bedding. They are particularly blissful on hot summer nights when you want to slip between cool sheets and not get hot and sweaty. If you haven’t tried a set of bamboo sheets yet, we recommend you give them a go.
Bamboo is, undeniably, a fabulous, green resource with massive upside to the environment if we can better harnesss its benefits and expand on its uses.
Bamboo is SUSTAINABLE
Bamboo is truly remarkable – it is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Did you know bamboo can replenish itself within a year, with some special growing an enormous 120cm per day!
It’s also important to understand that bamboo is a naturally prolific and resilient plant, which doesn’t require fertilisers to boost its growth, or pesticides to keep it free of pests. Bamboo is naturally pest-resistant, a remarkable characteristic.
Bamboo also has other advantages over, say, cotton or timber, which need to be replanted at every harvest and requires extensive spraying and watering to achieve optimal growth.
See here for more on bamboo’s sustainability credentials.
Bamboo is environmentally friendly
As bamboo is chemical-free and requires very little water to grow, it is not only an environmentally wonder plant, but it absorbs more carbon dioxide from the air than cotton or timber.
Releasing more oxygen into the environment, it improves air quality.
Cotton farming, however, requires extensive irrigation and chemical spraying – a single cotton t-shirt can use up to 2700 litres of water in the process!
BAMBOO IS BIODEGRADABLE
Bamboo is 100% natural and biodegradable.
This is a big plus for both bamboo clothing – goodbye landfill! – and other bamboo products.
Once you have no further use for a bamboo product, it’s comforting for the environmentally-conscious consumer to know it will return to the Earth leaving little environmental impact.
Plastic, in total contrast, will continue to clog up the ecosystem for the remainder of your lifetime, your children’s lifetime and your grandchildren’s lifetime.
Bamboo has a tiny environmental footprint and leaves barely a trace behind.
Bamboo production is sensitive to local communities
Bamboo products are made without the use of synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or artificial growth hormones, which in turn keeps chemicals out of our air, soil, waterways and eco-systems.
Bamboo promotes biodiversity of wildlife – with significantly higher animal welfare standards- and supports local communities by paying a fair and reasonable price for labour.
And lastly, though not super relevant in the context of bamboo clothing and garments, there is another benefit to increasing our take up of this wonder plant:
BAMBOO IS SAFE AND NUTRITIOUS TO EAT
Organic products are as close to nature as possible, making them more nutrient-dense and remarkably better for your health.
Not only do they contain higher levels of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, the bioavailability of these nutrients is greater, meaning the body is able to absorb more of the goodness. Not to mention organic products taste and feel better too!
Bamboo shoots are edible, low in fat and calories and are rich in carbohydrates and potassium. If you’ve never eaten them, toss a few through your next stir-fry and enjoy the added crunch that they bring.
Bamboo products are appearing in all aspects of our lives and bamboo clothing is starting to make inroads into the sustainable fashion market. And rightly so.
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