Bamboo-labelled textile items may not be as green: Canada

The Competition Bureau of Canada recently issued an advisory, cautioning customers that bamboo-labelled sheets, T-shirts and other textile products found in stores and online may not be as ‘green’ as they seem, as transforming bamboo fibre into soft fabrics for clothing, towels or bedding involves the use of a lot of environmentally harmful chemicals.

The end product of this major chemical transformation process is a fabric called rayon or viscose, which contains no trace of the bamboo plant or its anti-microbial properties.

Though the advertisements and labels for these fabrics must include terms such as rayon, viscose, rayon from bamboo or viscose from bamboo, these are often misrepresented as bamboo without any mention of rayon or viscose, the advisory said.

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The practice of trying to make products seem more eco-friendly than they are by companies is called greenwashing, which is against the law, it said.

It urged customers to report such cases to the bureau.