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Ask Tara – Are bamboo and soy eco-friendly fibers?

By Tara, on February 19th, 2009

organic cotton - peony

Today, I was going to write about my new line of Vegan yarn and roving. But I started Twittering with fellow yarnies about vegan fiber and why I don’t love bamboo and soy.  The conversation turned to why I don’t stock those two fibers and I wanted to share my musings about it with you.

As I explored and researched bamboo and soy, I realized something deeper about my business ethics. The Boutique and my own personal life is fuled by two concurrent passions:

  1. Support the community (both local and far-flung community of independent yarnies)
  2. Do my best to choose the most eco-friendly option

Those two passions converge nicely in nearly everything I dye and spin – local fleeces, mill-end fiber, recycled banana yarn (handspun by a fair-trade women’s co-op) but sometimes they get a bit tricky, like bamboo and soy.

Why not Bamboo and Soy?

Both are touted as environmentally friendly for very good reasons: bamboo is made from the very sustainable bamboo plant which quickly regrows; soy is made from the leftovers of tofu manufacturing, so it’s essentially recycled material.

However, I choose not to stock these fiber regularly in the Boutique because I’m not comfortable with the manufacturing process.  Both are made into fiber (for spinning, millspun knitting yarns and for commercial fabric) by a process that includes “multi-stage bleaching” that isn’t considered to be sustainable or eco-friendly. You can read about the entire process here.

I’m not a scientist and frankly, I don’t understand the whole process.

However, I do feel they are NOT the most eco-friendly cellulose fibers due to their manufacturing  (#2 above) but when they’re in something created by a fellow indie dyer (like Cloudlover’s beautiful merino/bamboo blends) they are certainly appealing (#1 above). They are not on my never-use list (like acrylic) and when it supports a fellow indie, I love it.

So for me, there’s a distinction between buying something in bulk, regularly, to supply my fiber-friends with and supporting another small business when s/he makes what they feel to be a eco-friendly decision. The former feels like it gives the product  my Eco-Friendly Seal of Awesomeness while the latter is an acknowledgment that I don’t have all the answers and I’m not the only one dyeing awesome fiber.

I’d like to know if this distinction makes sense to you? Do you find you have these similar goals in your eco-friendly choices?

If you have any questions about any fiber (whether I use it or not), please let me know! I love reasearching!

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  • Very interesting post, and I share your hesitancy to use bamboo fibre due to the processes used to create it. One question for you: how did you find out that soy undergoes a similar multi-stage bleaching process? I've been searching for info on soy fibre manufacturing for a while now, and would love to find more sources of information about it... thanks!
  • A slightly lengthier version of what I was trying to get across on Twitter: yes, they may not be the *most* eco-friendly (and, by the way, since so much of the processing technology is proprietary, ANY answer you get about how these fibers are processed is going to be somewhat vague if not outright evasive), but I see it more in terms of market demand. If we like, use, and create a market for these fibers, we can also push demand towards additional certifications, etc (so, for example, certifications on where the bamboo is harvested, how things are grown, etc). We're only just now getting to that stage with food in this country so I think fiber = a long way off.

    But making your preferences known certainly helps!

    Meanwhile, barring all external obligations, I would be just as happy as you to either support ultra-local farmers and small, indie producers instead of using some of these commercially available yarns, but I also think that *in* using them, we help create a broader, more diverse marketplace of fibers. After all, if the commercial side of the business dies, good luck getting the fiber for someone like Cloudlover to dye... it's all interconnected!
  • AH! Most excellent point! Sometimes I forget that they need us. I mean, I'm so tempted to just opt-out that I forget that by buying the nearly-good stuff, we can encourage more perfectly-good stuff.

    Thank you *so* much for sharing that perspective!




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