Bamboo – why we use it in all our products.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017 0 Bamboo Monkey, Fighting Climate Change, Interesting Things Permalink 0

I worked for years as a product developer with some of Australia’s top retailers.

As a buyer, my job involved working out what the increasing fickle teenage market wanted to wear, and getting it to the market as quickly and cheaply as possible before they changed their minds.

An exciting job with lots of travel. I loved it.

Then, the race to cheaper prices, cheaper labour markets with cheaper goods, led me to make my first visit to Bangladesh.

I had often been to factories in China. In China you get cheeky grins, the workers often checking out what you are wearing and it’s pretty easy to see if they approve 🙂

In Bangladesh, however, things were different. In a big way.

The sadness, exhaustion and resignation in the eyes of the workers was both confronting and breathtaking. It was very clear they were not working in a happy, safe and nurturing environment.

No amount of fresh paint can hide what is in someone’s eyes.

Suddenly, I found myself questioning these decisions to source cheaper products, all in the name of profit unable to turn a blind eye to what I was seeing.

Prices of “fast fashion” are now so cheap that we have trained consumers to purchase with an expectation of a couple of wears before throwing it away. The price dictates the expectation that these goods are not made to last.

And landfills just keep getting bigger and bigger, while we turn a blind eye.

All that started the process that eventually led to the creation of the first range of monkey sox, and later the birth of Bamboo Monkey.

As a manufacturer, being accountable means to us at Bamboo Monkey that we do exhaustive research to find ethical partners who:

source raw materials with minimal carbon footprint
Use dyestuffs that are non toxic, both for workers and the environment.
Have factories with extensive recycling facilities, so all water used in the fabric construction is filtered and processed to approved standards before it is released back into the environment.
Have adult workers, who receive a living wage, and have safe working conditions, with regular breaks, with no fear of bullying or loss of job.

Through my research of raw materials I also discovered bamboo, which turned out to be a real “Wonder Fibre”

Bamboo grows fast organically – 10x faster than trees – and requires typically only rainfall. No chemicals are needed as it naturally deters insects & pests. AND it absorbs 5x the amount of greenhouse gases – than other crops, including trees.