Friday, August 8, 2008

Organic Clothing bamboo article, green fatigue and a nifty green wardrobe calculator

I am about to officially begin my sabbatical from my university, and will be spending most of my writing time on the book I am supposed to have completed by December 2009. My plan is to aim for a substantive blog post here once a week, with pointers to items of interest on other days.

Today's morsel comes from Organic Clothing, one of my favorite sustainable clothing blogs. They address some of the most prevalent conflicting claims about bamboo fiber and bamboo rayon, leaving the hapless consumer wondering whose advertising to believe.

I have also been following discussions about bamboo yarns for knitting and crocheting on Ravelry (sorry, you need to be a member to read the discussions, but if you are a crafter,go ahead and sign up to be on the waiting list; you'll love it!) and it appears that savvy crafters are catching on to the bamboo labeling dance. Believe me, when they find out it's rayon, they are not pleased. (Though it does explain why their lovely, soft 100% bamboo handknit socks won't hold their shape.) I am worried that the current eco-fashion hype and hoopla (not at all confined to bamboo, by the way) will result in green fatigue or worse: backlash.

Few fibers on the market are 100% eco-friendly, and we all must make choices -- well-informed choices. To help you make better choices, try out the green wardrobe calculator at Ecotextile News. You may be surprised to find that the answer is not so much what you buy, but how you launder it, how long you wear it, and where it goes when you're done with it.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Alena, Thanks for your comments! I do my best!