Cloth Diaper Fabrics: Organic Bamboo
Posted on June 15, 2011
Today is the third installment in our series looking at the fabrics commonly used in cloth diapering. You can see other posts in this series by clicking here.
Bamboo is one of the most popular fabrics for cloth diapers and definitely one of the most chic. It's luxuriously soft, eco-friendly, and very absorbent. In fact, tests have shown that rayon from bamboo absorbs moisture on contact 70% more quickly than cotton and dries 20% faster. And for softness, it's known for mimicking silk, cashmere, or french terry fleece.
It's also with good reason that bamboo has such an eco-friendly rap:
Bamboo retains water, thus requiring very little irrigation.
It puts down deep roots, thereby supporting riverbanks and hillsides and avoiding erosion.
It is naturally anti-microbial, thus needing no pesticides or fertilizers.
It absorbs five times more carbon dioxide and releases 35% more oxygen into the environment than a stand of trees covering the same acreage.
It's a very sustainable crop, as it doesn't need replanting for years at a time and it grows very quickly. Once a mother clump of bamboo has taken root - generally about three years - it only takes one growing season of 3-4 months for the shoots to be ready for harvest. In fact, if the growing conditions are just right, bamboo can even grow more than a metre in one day!
When it comes to making bamboo into a textile, there's a vast difference between conventional and sustainable practices, however. The fibres in a bamboo stalk are very short and cannot be knit directly into a yarn as with most other textiles, so they must be softened, pulped, and stretched like taffy to create the fibres. In the conventional process of turning bamboo cellulose into the silky-soft rayon we know and love, several caustic chemicals are used to soften and break down the fibres, which has a severe environmental impact and destroys the antimicrobial properties of the bamboo itself.
However, sustainable companies, such as the ones whose products we carry here at New & Green, are committed to creating their rayon in environmentally responsible ways. For example, Tots Bots, the makers of the Stretch Bamboozle and the Easy Fit, make sure their processing is done within the strict international environmental standards of ISO 9000 & 14000. The finished product also falls under the coveted European Oeko-Tex standard. And as an added bonus, viscose rayon made from bamboo is more biodegradable than other similar fabrics, including organic cotton.
In the end, organic, sustainably produced bamboo diapers are one of the best choices you can make. Make sure you check out the Bamboozle, the Easy Fit, the BabyKicks 3G, and the AMP bamboo flats!
Photo credit
http://www.totsbots.com/
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Whether you have a top-loading, agitator machine or a front-loading, high-efficiency machine, how much water you use is critical is cleaning your diapers thoroughly.
Partially because diapers are thicker than many other types of wash, partially because you're specifically trying to get the "dirty" out of the middle rather than just the surface, and partially because the ammonia from urine is particularly good at clinging to fabric fibres, water is the only way to thoroughly and efficiently clean your diapers through and through.
In a standard agitator machine, the level of water is easy to determine, as the machine is designed to fill with water to your predetermined level. It's important to have enough water to cover the diapers fully without filling so much that the diapers float about like objects in space - the diapers need to be able to rub against each other in the wash action and if there's too much water, they sort of just float past each other. This is referred to as 
Today our featured mom is SB.
How old are you?
I am 35 years old.
What did you do (from a working perspective) before your baby arrived?
I am an Elementary School Teacher.
Are you currently at home with your baby/children or working in/out of the home?
I am at home on maternity leave.
How old is your baby?
My first child is 3 years old and my second is 3 months old.
When did you decide to cloth diaper?
I was interested in cloth diapering when baby number one was born but because of her medical issues, it seemed too overwhelming to get organized to cloth diaper her. I made a commitment to myself to cloth diaper for baby number two.
When did you start cloth diapering?
I started cloth diapering when baby number two was a month old. I would have started earlier but I didn’t realize that cloth diapers came that small. I bought a bunch of 
Often we give lots of thought to our laundry routines: what detergent to use, how to sort our loads, how often to wash, which cycles and temperatures to use...
But not nearly so often (or at least, not nearly as many of us) give as much thought to our water quality. Perhaps this is due to the fact that we can't really change the quality of our water as it enters our washing machine, but it certainly does interplay with all the other factors in determining how well our clothes and diapers get clean.
The terms "hard" and "soft" when applied to water merely refer to the concentration of minerals in the water, such as iron, calcium, and magnesium. Over the long term, these minerals can leave residue in water pipes and stains in your various wash areas (kitchen sink, bathtub), but they can make a difference in the short term too, as the minerals will interplay with your detergent, affecting the outcome.
This is why it's important to 
