Baby Blog – News & Tips on Organic Parenting

Is Organic Bamboo Baby Clothing Safe?

April 8th, 2008

The votes are in, the hottest new clothing fiber is bamboo. You can find it almost anywhere now. Its the new sustainable and environmentally friendly fiber. When combined with cotton its very soft, and even more durable then pure cotton close. The problem is there is no USDA certification for bamboo yet.

And why not? Bamboo doesn’t even need pesticides to grow. It grows like a weed! Furthermore, fabrics made of bamboo already have properties that are antibacterial, even anti-fungal — aka you don’t have to wash them all the time without having to wear petrulli oil.

But the bureaucracy with the USDA is, as usual, as slow as a turtle on valium. I hear they plan to review the possibility of certifying bamboo by the year 2022 (kidding). But in all seriousness, be careful where you order . The manufacturing process of bamboo clothing is where good can go bad. Most clothing made from bamboo goes through an intensive chemical process, to make the cotton feel softer. This is done by “cooking” the leaves and shoots in extremely strong chemicals like sodium hydroxide or (NaOH) and another bleaching process that uses hydrosis alkalization. Both of those chemicals are linked to health problems for the workers creating the stuff (and certainly not good for the people who wear the clothes before washing it).

True eco friendly bamboo manufacturers (such as the companies we use for our (organic baby products) get the ISO 14001 certification, showing the factory is using certain environmental guidelines of green practices. Many also get the Oeko Tek certification, which states that there are no harmful chemicals in the finished fiber.

Tags: Bamboo
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