Me and My Cars Yet Again - Part 1

Electric Cars have arrived

I wrote my first Me and My Cars post in 2016. Then, I lusted after the (to me) inaccessible fantasy motor, the Tesla, and referenced an article in the journal of the Centre for Alternative Technology entitled Has the Time of Electric Cars Arrived? (Clean Slate, no.99, Spring 2016) Well, we can answer that now can't we?

Last year, 2023, despite a small drop in market share at 16.5%, electric car sales in the UK reached a record high. (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, quoted on BBC R5 Wake up to Money 24/ 01/24.)

Jaguar Land Rover are putting out a range of electrics and hybrids, Nissan are cranking up production in the North East and Stellantis/Vauxhall are going in big at Ellesmere Port.

Also, it looks like China's BYD, having overtaken Tesla as the world's biggest selling electric car, will bring us a more affordable product very soon. This, though, is a good news/bad news thing. More affordable means more uptake means good for net zero. But it also means stiff competition for our own product (remember Japanese motorbikes in the seventies?). Fingers crossed then that we can meet the competition. Having said that, as I write, the EU is considering investigating the Chinese for anti-competitive subsidy. (See References at the end)

Another important issue about buying the Chinese product is the sustainability of its manufacturing operation. I haven't looked closely at this but BYD have been working with the sustainability consultancy EDF on this matter and seem to be making the effort. It's a very important point. We should not be exporting our carbon footprint to another country. (See References)

Is electric good for all vehicles?

So, can we sit back and wait for EVs to continue pushing out ICE (internal combustion engine) cars until there are none left and we're all silently zooming about electrically? Well, not according to Akio Toyoda, CEO of Toyota, who has recently said that EVs will only ever reach 30% market share at most. There's a lot of discussion about this as I write , some of it quite scornful.  But I think he should be taken seriously. (See References)

I am a big fan of electric transport, but even in my own experience I can see where it's going to struggle. In the last 20 years I have spent a lot of time working with 4x4's in remote places a very long way from a gas station. I can't replace my jerry cans of spare diesel with spare batteries can I? (I know there are a few electric SUV's coming on the market but I can only imagine they are aimed at the Chelsea tractor market and, maybe, farmers and the like.)

Then there's haulage. The batteries needed to power a great big HGV would be so big and heavy as to leave little capacity for the payload. And how about agricultural machinery and construction industry plant?

At this point I'm not going to fall foul of that 21^st century thinking disability, the curse of the binary. It's not a two sided battle as villainous oil is vanquished by heroic electricity for sole control of transport. It's obvious, and many people are saying it: the future is a mix, a variety of green technologies applied according to relevance.

Mr Toyoda is probably right in principle, though we might argue about that 30%. It doesn't mean electric cars are wrong and we should abandon them. They are certainly going to clear our roads of an immense amount of CO² spewing traffic. But we should accept that we need something else as well.

And there are people working on that. Mr Toyoda's own company for instance, has hydrogen powered cars in its range. Here in Britain, JCB already have applied hydrogen power to the heavy stuff. They have demonstrated a hydrogen digger and have shown a straightforward way of converting a van to hydrogen. (See References)

Good and Bad Hydrogen

Hydrogen is clean at the point of use, producing only water vapour as exhaust. 

But there are clean and less clean ways of producing it. The cleanest is 'Green' hydrogen which is produced by electrolysing water using green energy, and is completely carbon zero. Next is 'Blue' hydrogen which is separated out from natural gas (methane), leaving behind carbon dioxide – which has to be captured and locked away if the process is to be clean. This can be done by sending it down to the porous rocks where the methane came from. I believe it remains to be seen if this will work with the amounts of CO² we would be producing.

How the hydrogen is produced is obviously crucial. The currently most common way is like the blue method, except that the CO² is released to air. Pointless of course, in the net zero project. This method is referred to as 'grey' hydrogen. There's a whole spectrum of colours tagged to hydrogen production methods and I'm not going to specify them here. There's a good breakdown on the National Grid's website at: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/hydrogen-colour-spectrum

(I can't, though, resist the temptation to include this quote from the same website:

'Japan and Australia announced a new brown coal-to-hydrogen project recently. This project will use brown coal in Australia to produce liquefied hydrogen, which will then be shipped to Japan for low-emission use'.

Brown coal is very dirty indeed – Google it and see. So Japan's 'low-emission use' is actually very high emission use - exported to an all too willing Australia.)

Even when we acknowledge that there should be a mix of fuel techs to power our vehicles we are restricting our thinking if we leave it at that.

Norway, praised on all sides for achieving an 80% take up of electric cars, is now facing some unintended consequences. Environmental objectives such as relief of congestion, cycling, pedestrianisation and reduction of demand for energy have been side-lined as everyone rushes to own a nice new electric motor at a subsidised price. And the public transport system, essential in a country which wants to treat those who are less affluent fairly, is poor. (See References)

And do you know who flagged up this issue 8 years ago? I did. 

So I was very impressed indeed by Paul Wilcox, CEO of Vauxhall UK, when he spoke to Deborah Meaden (environmentalist and Den dragon) on BBC Radio in 2022. (BBC Sounds, Best of the Big Green Money Show 09/12/2022 at about 5min 30sec):

Deborah Meaden: ' ...is it genuinely sustainable for households to own one or two, sometimes three, cars?'

Paul Wilcox: 'One thing that's coming and I think it will come quite quickly - I think our industry is facing in the next ten years the biggest change it's ever seen. We're going to see a seismic shift in absolutely everything. Things like subscription models where you can access cars and use them as you need. Deborah, you've got a twenty year old car … you don't drive it that often – maybe in 5 years time or ten years time you probably won't have a car that's not being used that often or is that old. It'll be [more economic more efficient and more reliable] for you to access a fractional ownership model meaning many people using a similar product - and the market's moving that way. It's progressed in the last 20 years and I think the acceleration in the next ten years will be huge.'

DM: 'Does that mean [...] you're getting prepared as a company to sell a lot less cars?'

PW: 'Yes, we'll drive our business to match the market demand. So, there are 35 million cars on the road today. I don't think that's sustainable in terms of the age of the product so I think in the next ten to fifteen years there's enough scope for us to renew the vehicles on the road and it will sustain a healthy business but I think also we need to reshape our business … how we sold cars in the past will need to change in the future - we need to adapt to that.'

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12346238

He also pointed out that the huge majority of delivery vehicles in the UK travel around 50 miles a day, making them ideal contenders for electrification. Well, when I was a kid there was a system: British Railways brought stuff to a depot where it was transferred onto a fleet of electric vehicles for distribution around the city. Now there's a thought.

A quick visit to wikipedia found one of these vehicles for me. It was called by the alliterative but slightly menacing name of the Scammell Scarab.

At the same time of course our milk and bread were delivered to our doors by electric 'floats'.

To sum up

• EVs have at last started to come on at a rate to challenge ICE cars.
• Production in the UK is being stepped up, and China – already the world's biggest producer - is set to be a big player at the affordable end of the UK market. This will be a challenge to our home grown product.
• Battery electric won't be enough on its own to replace all the work done by ICEs.
• Hydrogen is coming on as a fuel to go alongside battery-electric especially for heavier duty vehicles, with JCB already demonstrating its use. It was slow starting so it needs to come on very fast if it is to benefit our net zero effort.
• One auto industry leader has signalled that current patterns of car production and ownership are set to change. He thinks fewer cars will be produced in future, with vehicles being used more intensively through multi-user, 'fractional ownership', schemes.
• Delivery vehicles, which on average travel a low daily mileage, are excellent candidates for electrification.
• And beware of unintended consequences. Norway's experience tells us that we need to keep the big picture in mind.

How about me and my cars then? Not electric yet I'm afraid – can't afford it. But, what if I could? Should I go for it – upgrade to an electric?

I drive an old car (11 years) and my annual mileage is quite low*, which makes the answer to that question less obvious than it seems. Jillian Annable of the Institute for Transport Studies at Leeds University told Deborah Meaden on the BBC's Big Green Money Show (2nd September2022) that, with very low mileage use, it would probably be better to keep the old one for the following reason:

Using electric power rather than fossil fuel over a small distance would save a proportionally small amount of CO². The amount saved would never cancel out the emissions needed to manufacture a new car for me. Also, if I sell my old car, it is unlikely that the new owner will do a similarly small mileage so its CO² output will go up.

Prof. Annable thinks that at the moment the cut-off is around 7,000 miles a year. More than that, the amount of CO² avoided would justify a change.

I do just about 7k per year. So I'm on the borderline. It's a fast moving scene though, and I feel this won't stay the case for long. For one thing, the second-hand market has yet to take off fully.

(*In my own car that is – I also drive cars belonging to the organisation I volunteer for, for work purposes.)

There's much more to think about though:

When is a person like me going to be able to afford one?

Are there enough charging points and will I have to queue and wait around for ever for my car to charge?

Do electric vehicles catch fire easily?

Are they too heavy for bridges and multi storey car parks?

How is all that energy going to be produced and transmitted to the point of use?

Who will make all the batteries and where will they come from?

All this and more in Me and My Cars Yet Again Part 2, coming soon. 

References

Nissan:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nissan-triples-investment-in-electric-vehicle-production-in-the-uk

JLR:

https://www.landrover.com/electric/index.html

Chinese competiton:

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66820791

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/02/chinas-byd-overtakes-tesla-as-top-selling-electric-car-seller

EU China Subsidy Investigation:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_4752

Sustainability of BYD:

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/05/12/edf-climate-corps-fellows-unearth-energy-savings-for-byd/

Toyota chairman's 30% prediction:

Bloomberg (paywall):

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-23/toyota-chairman-predicts-battery-electric-cars-will-only-reach-30-share?leadSource=uverify%20wall

This is quite informative, so long as you bear in mind that elektrek has been criticised in the past for being rather too Tesla-friendly:

https://electrek.co/2024/01/23/toyota-chairman-evs-30-market-share/

https://www.toyota.co.uk/hydrogen

Norway:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/norway-electric-vehicle-energy-transport/

Downside to Norway's EV take up:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23939076/norway-electric-vehicle-cars-evs-tesla-oslo

JCB Hydrogen

https://www.jcb.com/en-gb/news/2023/01/jcb-hydrogen-world-first-makes-international-debut

Paul Wilcox, I believe is now (2024) retired from his post at Vauxhall. 

About Sustainable Shopping: Wiping 2 - The Bum

The bum-wiping experience is another feature of the transition I experienced from post-war deprivation to present day plenty. I remember as a child using newspaper cut into squares and hung by a clip or nail in the outdoor closet.

As with a lot of things, our understandable longing for something better was satisfied by job-specific products becoming available – which, sadly, then went on to be tweaked and prettified to a point which has become ludicrous. As you look at the pastel coloured, scented, work of art in your hand, just reflect on what you are about to do to it.

I wouldn't want to go back to that newsprint. It's not good for the job and anyway we don't have that much of it around any more do we? But it was a fine example of reusing something no longer needed for its original purpose.

So I'm minded to adhere to the spirit of those make do and mend toilet paper years without resorting to the unpleasantness of newsprint. Surely the only acceptable bum wipe is made of recycled material which is no use for anything else. Recycled paper toilet rolls are available from online suppliers and many supermarkets have at least one such product.

Actually though, there are other potential ways to sustainably wipe the bum. A bidet is one of course. The fact that many other countries use them, while most of us in the UK don't, puts us high in the league table of per capita toilet paper users (see endnotes).

An enthusiastically marketed product is bamboo toilet 'paper'. I have a lot to say about bamboo  elsewhere, not all of it good (Bamboo), but in this context it looks OK. If, that is, it is supplied by an ethical producer who tells us how it got here. See for instance, the cheerily named Bumboo brand:

https://gobumboo.com/blogs/sustainability/bumboo-country-of-orgin

So what am I going to do to clean up my bum-wiping? Well, as with all sustainability issues, it's complicated when you go into it. Yet constipation looms if I hang around waiting for a definitive final answer. So for now, recycled toilet paper is what I'll use. I'll rephrase that: toilet paper made from recycled paper (unbleached and undyed of course). At the same time I'll keep an eye on those other options and go for one or the other if, at some point, they show themselves to be better. It's about consumer choice: I will reduce demand for the pimped stuff by one and increase demand for the better stuff by one. When enough of us do that, the bad stuff begins to wither away. It won't if we just sit on the bog and wait.

***

Endnotes:

There's a good discussion of toilet paper and bidets here which compares brands and lists suppliers and also looks at the bamboo alternatives to paper.

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/home-garden/shopping-guide/toilet-paper

Ethical Superstore has 'Bumboo' brand bamboo toilet paper:

https://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/

Update December 2021:

I've just seen this fine example of toilet paper 'tweaked and prettified to a point which has become ludicrous'. I wonder how nice orange, cranberry and shit actually smells.

Sustainable Shopping 4 - It's Common Sense

 

Common Sense Behaviour in the Modern World

• 2 – 3 centuries ago in the early industrial revolution the horrible pollution poured out in a few valleys by newly invented industrial processes wasn't enough to have a worldwide impact. It more or less hung around and made life nasty for the locals.

• It's difficult to know what the world population was back then but estimates vary between 600 and 900 million. Let's say below one billion anyway. See https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/international-programs/historical-est-worldpop.html

• One century ago my granddad was age 30, my dad was a baby and the world population had doubled in the meantime to 1.8 billion, roughly a quarter of what it is now.

• Then, only a small fraction of that quarter sized population were living as we do now, as consumers, requiring many resources and industrial processes to service their lifestyle.

• Only a tiny percentage of that small fraction of that quarter sized population travelled by car, using fossil fuel and spreading exhaust gases around.

• Only a miniscule percentage of that small fraction of that quarter sized population flew in aeroplanes, pouring gases out into the atmosphere. Compare this to 2020 when the number of passenger flights 'plummeted' to 1.8 billion - a number equal to the entire world population then - because of the huge decline caused by coronavirus. (According to the business statistics provider Statista.)

• Then, plastics were in the early stages of development, and had (and have) much to offer, but weren't yet known to create mountains of indestructible litter.

• Then, it made sense for an ordinary person to aspire to benefit from these things. Certainly, half that time ago, by which time the population had almost doubled again (3.4bn), I did.

But I look now at our vastly expanded population – doubled yet again - and I think, seven billion of us haven't room to chuck shit about like a few of our ancestors had.

***

We have to dramatically clean up our act so that we can all enjoy a quality standard of living without suffocating in our own crap. Those new technologies being exploited by our forebears were early versions, primitive by modern standards, and usually dirty. 'Where there's muck there's money', as they used to say in my part of the world. That was all they had back then. Building from those beginnings we have reached a point today where we have the expertise to do things in much better, more refined, ways. So let's do it - it's common sense.

What I don't think is common sense is a belief that we should remain tied to those old technologies because "I'm making money/I've always done it that way/I don't want to think about it".

What I don't think is common sense is a belief that a nice beardy man in the sky has it all under control and will rescue us from the consequences of our actions.

What I don't think is common sense is a belief I can buy an island and hide from it all.

What I don't think is commonsense is a belief we can all jump on a space ship and go and live on Mars.

What I don't think is common sense is a belief that we can all go and live under a plastic dome somewhere.

What I don't think is common sense is a belief that the planet will rebalance itself in a way to suit our convenience. (I have posted about this:
https://whysgetsserious.blogspot.com/2015/02/about-environment-1-one-liners-and-off.html?m=1 )

We have a choice - behave like the species which has the gift of being able to learn, see ahead, plan, innovate and organise for the future - or behave like just another dumb animal that obliviously grazed chomped and shit its way through the landscape until it was all used up and the next dumb animal came along.

About Sustainable Shopping 3: In the Kitchen, Wiping Scrubbing and Scraping

Wiping

Kitchen roll can be paper made from new wood, or recycled; it can be bleached or unbleached, dyed or undyed.

Bleached and dyed paper made from new wood is surely pointless for these jobs. It's using forestry which could go for something better than a few seconds of blotting before being binned and buried. If it is FSC approved wood, well so what – wasting wood is still wrong even if it is FSC approved wood. Bleaching and colouring involve pollution from chlorine and other chemicals. It's not wallpaper - the look of it doesn't matter, there's no justification for the pollution involved in making it look pretty.

Recycled paper is much better because, apart from not wasting a valuable resource it requires less processing. It should of course be unbleached and uncoloured.

I shouldn't have much trouble cleaning up my act in this respect then, as most supermarkets have at least one line of recycled paper kitchen towels and they are available in bulk online. But ... ...

What about 'non paper'?

Reusable 'non paper' cleaning cloths are enthusiastically marketed by 'ethical' suppliers – made from cotton or bamboo (i.e. cellulose derived from bamboo). Is it better to use these than it is to use paper?

Well here's another question: why would we go out and buy squares of cloth to wipe stuff up with? I am old and I experienced the transition after World War 2 from deprivation and austerity to the present era of plenty (at least for many of us). Back then we used to cut up old cloth items such as sheets and towels, which had come to the end of their useful lives, for just this purpose. True, they might only have been good for a few goes, or even only one, before they needed washing. But they were plentiful so they could be lobbed into a bucket until there were enough to make a washer load. (In the pre-washer days my mum used to boil them.)

We have to be careful that, in attempting to solve one problem, we don't create another, as this product from Ethical Superstore seems to do. The Ecozone Multisurface Cloth is marketed as a means of wiping without having to use chemical products such as surface cleaners. But it carries a health warning: 'Please note: This product contains microplastics'.

Sometimes navigating a way through this kind of cost benefit trade off is complex and difficult. But surely not here. I certainly won't be introducing yet another source of damage into the environment in order to save me from using soapy water or a sustainable surface cleaner.

See:

https://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/ecozone/ecozone-microfibre-multi-surface-cloth---80g/

Also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics

and:

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/microplastics.html

Here's Ethical Consumer on the Subject:

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/search?keywords=microplastics

So: I see the sense of using washable fabric wiping cloths instead of single use paper. But I'm wary of buying products manufactured for that purpose, first because I would have to verify the sustainability of the material used (see: Bamboo )  and second because it seems a waste of money. I'm going to do what my mum did in the olden days – I'll cut up old stuff to use. I realise, though, there are times when hygiene requires disposable stuff, and I will have some unbleached recycled paper towels for occasional use.

Scrubbers Scourers and Brushes

What about when I need something a bit more aggressive than a cloth? For years, like most people I guess, I have used those sponge blocks that have on one side a harder more abrasive kind of sponge. Now that I'm aware of the problem of microfibres getting into the environment (of which more, in a separate post, coming soon) I realise, just by looking at them, that they are a serious shedder of those things. The two shown here, used and unused from the same pack, show just how much

microplastic I have

sent down the

plughole into the wider world, to wash around out there forever. Who knows, I might end up eating it in my fish dinner one day. And now it's no longer any use, the remaining bit will be discarded into landfill, along with countless others, to remain there for the rest of eternity. And I reach for another …

Well not this time. There have always been metal versions of course, with or without soap, and they work very well. To be honest I don't know much about the environmental implications of the manufacture of these things. But they have to be better than plastic. They will in time rust

away to become once more the Earth's most common element, iron, I suppose. At least if I end up eating that it'll do me some good.

But I should be able to do better. There are natural products which can do the job.

For instance the dear old loofah! Without knowing quite what it is, I was always familiar with it as a bathroom 'sponge' of course - but I find that as well as having a comedy name, it's a plant, providing natural material for all sorts of products. Here's an alternative to those foam kitchen sponges:

https://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/loofco/loofco-washing-up-pad---twin-pack/

And I see that Ethical Superstore has much else made of loofah. Other retailers are of course available but I'm not going to cite any more – they're easily Google-able.

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd write: You can grow your own loofah!

See: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/knightshayes/features/grow-your-own-kitchen-sponges-loofahs

Wikipedia on loofah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa

Instead of the ubiquitous plastic dishwashing brush this looks a far better product, two suppliers here:

https://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/ecoliving/ecoliving-fsc-100-wooden-dish-brush-with-replaceable-head/

https://www.boobalou.co.uk/plastic-free-brushes/page/1/

Bearing in mind the untrustworthiness of eco-claims I checked this out. Its bristles are made of something called Tampico and as far as I can tell it seems a thoroughly praiseworthy product. (Until some asshole invents a way of pouring corrosives all over it to make cellulose gloop at least.)

See:

https://www.tampicofiber.net/fiber-production

and Wikipedia, which says:

'Ixtle, also known by the trade name Tampico fiber, is a stiff plant fiber obtained from a number of Mexican plants, chiefly species of Agave and Yucca...'

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ixtle

Coconut fibre (coir) has long been a useful natural product. We have long been wiping our feet on it and it has many uses around the house. Here's an example:

https://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/products/loofco/loofco-oven-tray---pan-scraper/

This one, though, shows up our need for awareness of the fact that our vast population can do little without heading into environmental difficulties. Coir is an undoubtedly sustainable product, properly handled. But things can go wrong. The traditional method of production does create some pollution, though nowhere near as noxious as rayon for instance. But a huge switch of consumption to it from plastics would amplify that pollution possibly to a dangerous level. There are, though, more up to date production methods which minimise pollution. I think this will be a pattern in the future with most natural products we use: caution, and the constant refining of production methods. There's a very good summary here:

https://ecoworldonline.com/coir-the-natural-fiber-from-coconut-husk/

Quick Reference Summary:

• For wiping jobs it's time to set aside pointlessly decorated and bleached virgin paper.

• I will treat manufactured 'non-paper' products with suspicion. They unnecessarily use resources and might even, in some cases, be worse than the problem they mean to solve.

• For everyday use I will make my own wiping cloths out of scrap material.

• I will keep a small amount of recycled paper towel around the place for those few occasions when circumstances demand something disposable.

• For tough scouring and scraping jobs I will use natural materials such as coir, loofah and Tampico.

• I understand that, as demand rises, it's possible for even basically inoffensive natural products to become polluting if they are not produced and processed in the right way.

About Sustainable Shopping 2: Bamboo

 

(Fabric, that is - I'll be looking at other products later.)

“This shirt is made from a tree”...

...is something I don't recall ever saying during those years, long ago, when I was a retail menswear salesman. I would have lost the sale and probably my job. So why do people keep saying “This garment is made from bamboo”?

Back then the textile I would have been referring to was rayon (aka viscose and various other names). And the textile that is now described as bamboo is - usually – rayon (aka viscose and various other names). It's been around for 100 years and more. It's an artificial fibre made from cellulose and the cellulose is got from woody sources like trees and bamboo.

I'm checking out bamboo because in my attempts to shop more sustainably I find it being used to support claims of environmental friendliness.

Bamboo growing requires no fertilisers and much less water than cotton; it grows almost anywhere and leaves the soil virtually unharmed. So by the time it arrives in the factory bamboo can be far ahead of rivals like polyester and conventionally grown cotton in terms of sustainability. So far so good.

But unless you're going to make underwear by nailing bamboo sticks together it needs to go through a lot of changes before it becomes that nice soft material we're familiar with. And there's the rub. That process can involve the use of noxious chemicals which do great harm to the environment and to the people working with them. However there are a few responsible and innovative producers out there who are working to realise the good potential of bamboo.

So I tried to separate them out from the rest. It wasn't easy. It's a subject filled with technicalities and misdirection. Here's what I found out.

1/The Source

The only point in the process at which being bamboo makes a difference is at this stage. It needs none of the pesticides, fertilisers and vast water consumption of 'the world's dirtiest crop', cotton; it is not a fossil fuel product such as polyester. And it grows more or less anywhere without damaging the soil. So a manufacturer using bamboo is off to an excellent start. But we still need to know that it is being grown without displacing vital natural resources (e.g. rainforest) or essential crops such as food.

2/ Processing

On entering the processing works it's the way the woody plant is treated that is important. If noxious chemicals (commonly carbon disulphide) are discharged into a river after being used to extract the cellulose, being bamboo won't improve matters. A responsible manufacturer will recover the chemicals and keep reusing them so that they never get out out into the wider world. I need to be assured that a product is made in this way, which is known as a closed loop process - a term I should look for on the labelling.

3/ Cellulose

From now on it's just cellulose. And cellulose is cellulose regardless of the kind of tree or plant it came from. It is no longer that tree or plant. Nor is it at this point any longer a fibre and so cannot have any of the attributes of a fibre, bamboo or otherwise. (This is important, see below, Endnote 5, 'Here's what the the FTC says about bamboo'.)

4/ Fibre/fabric/end product

That cellulose gloop is squeezed through tiny holes to create a new kind of fibre. Now it's the added stuff that counts. Such things as dressings, dyes and fire retardants can contain polluting, lingering, chemicals. Non-toxic alternatives do exist and I need to know they have been used.

5/ End of Life Disposal

Rayon is not recyclable. But it is biodegradable, a big point in its favour, though it needs help. It won't happen on your garden compost heap. It needs 'hot composting' – simple enough to set up if you are an enthusiast, but it really needs to be done at municipality level if it is to be done at scale. In landfill it takes a very long time to biodegrade, and releases methane in so doing (though responsible landfill operators should control this). It is at this stage that the added treatments in point 4 are significant. These should be biodegradable and non-toxic so that they are not left behind as pollutants as the material biodegrades.

At all these stages I need to be reassured about the conditions affecting farmers and workers. Are they paid properly? Are their working conditions safe? No child labour. No enforced labour or slavery – etc.

So here goes – decisions

Bamboo - Certified as ethically and sustainably sourced and processed with no toxic end of life residues? OK, I'll go for it. But I have been able to find only two such.

The first is so good that this would be a very short blog post if it were easily available. It is mechanically processed bamboo, where no nasty chemicals are used and no environmental or workplace hazards are involved. Here's what Sewport says about it:

'Bamboo fabric of the highest quality is made with production practices that do not extract cellulose. Instead, a natural enzyme is used on crushed bamboo wood fibers, and these fibers are then washed and spun into yarn. This yarn usually has a silky texture, and the fabric made by this process is sometimes called bamboo linen.

When bamboo fabric is made with this method, it is not environmentally harmful, and the resulting textile is strong and long-lasting.'

See this manufacturer: 

https://paragonbamboo.com/where-does-our-bamboo-come-from/

The second, which is not mechanically processed, is Monocel. This uses the Lyocell closed loop system to process ethically grown bamboo sustainably. See: https://www.launch.org/innovators/jonny-kristiansen/

One to be wary of is viscose, the old production method, still very widely used today. This is the one that, in the hands of unscrupulous manufacturers, causes serious pollution and danger to workers. Some manufacturers do handle it responsibly but I would need clear assurances about this before considering it. And I have to say that whilst there are plenty of assurances out there, most of them are far from clear.

If I'm told only that a product is bamboo, without being given any further information, I have to assume they're bullshitting me, probably using viscose, probably not closed loop. Or else why would they keep quiet about it? So, obviously, I have no intention of buying their stuff. I would sooner look instead for sustainably manufactured rayon from other sources, so long as they are sustainably grown.

Lenzing Modal, for instance, is a brand which is sourced from sustainably grown beech wood and which meets stringent criteria of sustainability in its processing. Other Modals are available but beware – there are dodgy ones out there. See Sustainable Jungle.

And:

https://sewport.com/fabrics-directory/modal-fabric

Tencel is another Lenzing brand using sustainably sourced wood. The ethical outdoor pursuits brand Patagonia uses Tencel in its products, see here .

Tencel spell out their sustainability claim here.

There's a good article here about Tencel, listing brands that use it:

https://goodonyou.eco/how-ethical-is-tencel/

And here: Good Housekeeping

This retailer is properly serious about sustainability and workers rights:

https://www.baukjen.com/blogs/journal/our-purpose

They are stockists of Lenzing and much else. I predict I'll be saying much more about them in future posts.

There is a good article here, which covers the exploitation of workers as well as the environmental concerns, and, importantly, it outs some of the offending brands:

https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/fashion-clothing/campaign-clean-viscose .

Anything Else? Yes -

There's a lot of word play out there and I need to make sure I see through it. For example, I came across a knitting yarn called Tencel Bamboo Fine. Looks good? Tencel made from bamboo? Well no. It's Tencel, which we have already seen is not made from bamboo, and Bamboo. In a 40/60 combination. So 40% sustainable product and 60% rayon of unknown provenance. The sales description I read goes into detail about the credentials of the 40% Tencel and remains silent as to the other. In the absence of further information I will assume therefore that it's 60% nasty old-school viscose (so the bamboo is actually the unsustainable part of this product) and avoid it. (But see below, Endnote 3, 'Mixes as a way of getting a toehold.')

The word, 'organic' occurs often yet rayon cannot fulfil the criteria for that classification as, although the original bamboo may be organic, it ceases to exist in the cellulose. (With one possible borderline exception, see note 4, 'Can bamboo rayon ever be organic?') And how about this one: 'Our bamboo is processed into a fibre using organic chemicals...' I can only imagine this manufacturer is using the word here in its scientific sense which is not at all the same as when we apply it to a cabbage or cotton. If I remember my high school chemistry right, organic is the term used to describe carbon based chemicals. Hmm... I wonder - carbon disulphide? (More on this below, Endnote 2, 'Word Play'.)

I'm a customer, not a scientist, and I want to be told what I am buying. I should not have to wade through industry, technical and specialist sources to find this out because vendors wrap their products around with deliberately ambiguous, misleading language. Just as bad as obviously flagrant environmental vandalism is greenwash, causing consumers to damage the environment while under the impression they are doing something to protect it.

In conclusion I have to say that I've reached a point where the word 'bamboo' applied to a product doesn't reassure me - it annoys me. It is most often just a 'hooray word' used to spread an unjustified aura of greenness.

Bamboo is a great crop with potentially a great future. Its use means we're not digging up ancient carbon and putting it back into the atmosphere. It saves us from needing all those herbicides and pesticides. It doesn't waste vast quantities of water. It's an economically viable crop which can be grown almost anywhere. So I will do my tiny bit to help bring on that great future by supporting those manufacturers who are mechanically processing bamboo and those who are using sustainable non-mechanical processes. As there are few of these – and if I really must have rayon - I will also support those who are responsibly making cellulose products from responsibly grown wood of whatever kind. If they go on at some point in the future to use bamboo as a source wood then so much the better. In that future, which I hope is not far away, I hope I will see more manufacturers cleaning up their bamboo act. And my local authority will be collecting their products when I've finished with them along with my other composting waste.

***

Endnotes:

Sources, links, some additional or expanded thoughts and the odd rant.

1/ Alternatives to rayon should definitely be considered, such as organic cotton, recycled cotton and hemp. These are more sustainable than even the best rayon according to Ethical Consumer.

2/ Word play – it's a real pity that we have to beat our way through such a thicket of this sort of thing in order to simply know what we are buying. A pity, but not unexpected, as I pointed out in my introductory post . For instance here's a fuller version of a quote I use in the post above:

'The bamboo we sell at Simplifi Fabric is bamboo viscose manufacturer [sic] with the closed loop process.

Our bamboo is processed into a fibre using organic chemicals that are covered under the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification and are 100% recyclable. The process utilises a 'closed-loop' system where all chemicals used are recycled and used again, and again.

Our bamboo textiles are certified under one or more of the following certifications:

• Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS)

• Oeko-Tex Standard 100

• OCS Blended - Organic Content Standard

• OCS 100 - Organic Content Standard'

There are certainly some encouraging words there – organic, recyclable, closed loop. Let's look: '...processed into a fibre using organic chemicals'. As already pointed out, this seems to be the technical usage of the word, not at all the same as what we mean when we apply it to, say, cotton.

'...100% recyclable...' True, if used in a closed loop system, which the blurb goes on to tell us is the case – so that's a positive.'….covered under the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification.' Well, as far as I can discover, Oeko-Tex Standard 100 is about end-user safety. The product is tested after manufacture for the presence of things that may harm the user. It is not its job to look at what happens on the way. So long as any nasties have been washed away by the time the product pops off the production line, it'll get a certificate. Here's what the Oeko-Tex website says:

'If a textile article carries the STANDARD 100 label, you can be certain that every component of this article, i.e. every thread, button and other accessories, [sic] has been tested for harmful substances and that the article therefore is harmless for human health. '

https://www.oeko-tex.com/en/our-standards/standard-100-by-oeko-tex

However the HelloNatural Living website disagrees with my point: '...the Oeko-Tex certification is your guarantee that your new clothes have been processed without harmful chemicals.' But I fail to see how they arrive at that conclusion because they say little more in the lead up to that statement than I have quoted above. That there are no nasties on the thing now doesn't mean there never have been. In fact it's viscose so we know there have been.

It's not that I want to disparage the Oeko-Tex standard, it's just that I don't want to see it misused. I want to pin down just what use it is to me as a customer when I see it tagged to a product. It shouldn't be this difficult. The precautionary principle tells me that it is of little use if I want to establish the environmental credentials of a product. See https://tuttifrutticlothing.com/blogs/news/why-organic-not-oeko-tex for some good sense.

And then there's 'Our bamboo textiles are certified under one or more of the following certifications'. Hmm... 'one or more'. Well, in this case just the one as far as I can see. What are the others there for? That green aura again? (See Endnotes 4 and 5 for more on this.)

And – I'm sorry Simplifi, I know you're not the only one – here's a fine example from their FAQ's of answering one question with the answer to a different, unasked, one:

Question: Is the process used to manufacture bamboo textiles harmful to the environment?

Answer: 'Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on earth with a growth rate of over 12 inches per day. 

Bamboo is tremendously strong and pest resistant. No fertilizers, pesticides or irrigation is required.

Bamboo does not require replanting. The shoots are cut to their base and the bamboo re-grows from new shoots.'

And so a question about processing the bamboo was given an answer about growing the bamboo. (The exasperated interlocutor there is of course WhysWhys)

As far as I am concerned, no-one in this murky scene gets the benefit of the doubt. I won't go near any product other than the very few I indicate in the main text.

3/ Mixes as a way of getting a toehold - Though my comment regarding Tencel Bamboo Fine was harsh, I do accept that there may be a place for such mixtures, clearly described. Sustainably produced materials have to push their way into the market yet have a price disadvantage. If this kind of blending can help them grow their business then maybe at some point soon economies of scale can kick in and they can gain a much more prominent position in the market. I hope. Maybe that's what the OCS 100 Blend standard is about. The OCS website tells us -

'The Organic Content Standard (OCS) applies to any non-food product containing 5-100 percent organic material. It verifies the presence and amount of organic material in a final product.'

See:

https://certifications.controlunion.com/en/certification-programs/certification-programs/ocs-blended-organic-content-standard

4/ Can bamboo rayon ever be organic?

See Organic 100: https://certifications.controlunion.com/en/certification-programs/certification-programs/ocs-100-organic-content-standard

If I understand right, we shouldn't expect this one to be awarded to bamboo rayon because the bamboo ceases to exist once the cellulose is created. Whereas it could be awarded to an organic cotton product because the fibres that came off the organically grown plant have been followed through and confirmed to remain in the end product.

This website, despite its name, seems to agree with that, while giving an explanation about how some Lenzing products come very close:

https://yesitsorganic.com/rayon-modal-tencel-environmental-friends-or-foes.html

5/ Here's what the the US Federal Trade Commission says about bamboo:

'If you make, advertise or sell bamboo-based textiles, the Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, wants you to know that unless a product is made directly with bamboo fiber — often called “mechanically processed bamboo” — it can’t be called bamboo. Indeed, to advertise or label a product as “bamboo,” you need competent and reliable evidence, such as scientific tests and analyses, to show that it’s made of actual bamboo fiber. Relying on other people’s claims isn’t substantiation. The same standard applies to other claims, like a claim that rayon fibers retain natural antimicrobial properties from the bamboo plant.'

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/how-avoid-bamboozling-your-customers

6/ Here's a good general article:

https://shopvirtueandvice.com/blogs/news/do-sustainable-fashionistas-buy-rayon-the-answer-may-surprise-you

7/ Quick Reference Essential Points:

• Mechanically processed bamboo fibre is great - nice if I can find it and afford it.
• Mostly though it's rayon made from cellulose derived from bamboo.
• Production is often very polluting. Look for closed loop, meaning chemicals are recycled; look for Monocell-Lyocell sustainable bamboo rayon; otherwise sustainable non-bamboo rayons e.g. Lenzing Modal and Tencel.
• If the only thing they tell me is that it's bamboo I assume it's greenwash - look out for misdirection and ambiguity.
• Rayon cannot be organic.
• Be careful to understand exactly what a certification label is telling me.
• Consider more sustainable alternatives such as recycled cotton or hemp.

 

I am not yet done with bamboo though. It is increasingly used for 'paper' and packaging products and much else. I'm looking at these and hope to post about some of them soon.

Next up: something quick and easy, I think, after that - about kitchen rolls and wiping and stuff.