Sustainable plant is used in flooring, furniture and now clothesCanada's jumping on a new green bandwagon, but these days, it's not just about recycled paper, beleaguered former environment ministers or pop bottles turned into fleece jackets.
It's about bamboo.
This tall, woody, weedy plant, which grows best in tropical climates, is making waves for its versatility, sustainability and strength.
What makes bamboo so great? Well, it's the fastest-growing plant on Earth; some species can grow one and a half metres a day, according to the Environmental Bamboo Foundation (bamboocentral.org). It releases 35 per cent more oxygen than equivalent forests of trees, and it can be harvested in about three years, compared with 10 to 20 years for most softwood trees.
Bamboo requires few, if any, pesticides, and it's also hardy, using anywhere from about 76 to 635 centimetres (30 to 250 inches) of annual rainfall.
It's versatile, too. In the past few years, bamboo has popped up in toys, flooring, cutting boards, kitchen utensils, and counter tops.
This spring, its influence has spread even further. Bamboo, food source of the beloved panda, is the material of the moment, the eco-fabric du jour, showing up in everything from diapers to yarn, panties to suits.
Generally blended with other materials such as linen or Spandex, bamboo is being featured in new collections from Cotton Ginny, Canadian womenswear designer Linda Lundstrom and lingerie chain La Senza.
What makes these reedy sticks so great?
"Bamboo is biodegradable, naturally antibacterial . . . . It's very breathable with moisture absorption," says Laurie Dubrovac, Cotton Ginny's director of marketing and communications. "It's a non-wood natural resource and it's sustainable, too."
Indeed, although the fabric bandwagon is fresh, the use of bamboo for consumer goods isn't new. After all, it's been used around the world, especially in Asia, for centuries.
Alexander Graham Bell's first phonograph needle was bamboo. Thomas Edison used a carbonized bamboo filament when he invented the light bulb. And who could forget the clunky bamboo furniture that was so popular throughout North America in the 1970s?
Kathy Tsolakos, La Senza's vice-president of marketing, said she believes the trend toward sustainable fibres will continue, because more people want choices that have a limited impact on the world around them.
"People are becoming more socially and environmentally conscious," she says.
"It's not just the food we're eating or the cars we're driving. Being environmentally conscious is part of their lifestyle. They're looking to carry that over into their fashion wardrobe, into every aspect of their life."