I was directed to this article by blog reader Bobbins. If you're looking for an interesting read, scroll down to "Why it matters". It is more fascinating information on the bamboo/rayon manufacturing process... apparently the biggest Superfund site in the country was a rayon manufacturing plant. Yeesh. Didn't know that.
Thanks, Bobbins!
Incidentally, I never set out to claim one fiber was good and another evil. I'm just presenting information and I chose that group of fibers because as a botany student I knew the claims of 'greenness' were sketchy at best. As Roxie pointed out, cotton and linen are tough on the soil and processing uses lots of power and chemicals. Wool uses a lot of processing chemicals, and the sheer number of sheep in some places cause all kinds of environmental problems (this also happens with Cashmere goats - the Chinese tried to up cashmere production and found large tracts of land horribly overgrazed).
There's no such thing as a free lunch, or a no-environmental-impact fiber. That's all. The only point I was attempting to make.
Oh. And I've got nothin' at all against killing bugs to get silk. Especially when the bugs were bred for six thousand years to make silk and wouldn't survive without humans using them to make silk, anyway. Maybe that makes me evil. I dunno. I consider it practical, myself.
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9 comments:
What we should do is go all cradle-to-cradle on their asses and impregnate wool with, like, nitrogen or something, so that when were done wearing our wool sweaters we can bury them in the fields depleted by growing cotton and bamboo. :)
Thanks for coming by my site to let me know you'd posted your post on the topic.
I've given up trying to please everyone, you can't. I routinely but not intentionally, manage to annoy anyone who visits my site. Particularly since I've been a foam at the mouth eco hippie for nearly forty years. Speaking of, you wrote:
And I've got nothin' at all against killing bugs to get silk. Especially when the bugs were bred for six thousand years to make silk and wouldn't survive without humans using them to make silk, anyway. Maybe that makes me evil. I dunno.
I'm a long time vegetarian and this doesn't keep me awake nights either. I read this interesting article you may like. Basically, her argument is that *more* baby silk bugs die with "peace silk" harvesting than not.
Dude, did you ever read Bloom County?
There was this one frame where Binkely went vegetarian, and then he went vegan, and then he stopped walking (to avoid stepping on bugs) and then he put on breathing mask (to avoid massacring germs) and THEN... came to his senses, got out of the tree, and had a pizza--but held the anchovies.
You can only do so much.
Still here. Still knitting. I will even use (shudder) acrylic if the case warrants it. (baby blanket fer example.) But like I said, It's nice to know what it costs. Thanks.
I'm tired of "green." I'm really tired of organic. We've had this conversation...
I like Amy's comment.
I think the best answer is perhaps to just consume less, in general, but that's not so good for the economy.
Ran across this at work today
http://organicclothing.blogs.com/my_weblog/2007/09/bamboo-facts-be.html
Gives lots of info on how bamboo is processed to make fabric.
I always learn something new when I read your blog...I'm not going away. Thanks for the information on the various fiber processes. Who knew?
Blogless Mary Lou
my beloved hippie-dippy son says hemp probably is the least environmentally damaging fiber.
but, of course, the u.s. government "protects' us from letting it be grown in any of the 50 states and all territories. (because it's "marijuana," yanno -- never mind that you'd have to smoke a 10-foot hemp-variety plant to get a little bit high.)
so anyone who wants to knit with hemp has to buy an import, thus hurting the balance of trade.
i haven't knitted with it, but i'd like to sometime. anyone here tried it?
I've enjoyed your blog for a while now, and just pleased I was able to contribute in a small way by passing along the reference to fashion-incubator.com.
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