BAMBOOZLED!

After hemp came to the attention of the masses, lots of other natural fibres tagged along, such as banana leaf, nettles, and bamboo. The fruit leaves left no lasting impression so far, the nettles were hot for 15 seconds, and then bamboo, the fibre of which was really a plastic, became flavour of the month for a few years. Why, I do not know. Bamboo is a great plant, but it is not the best for fibre, and does not provide medicine and rope as does hemp. Nor is it known to produce great paper. It uses lots of water, so it is not a good idea to grow it where less water intensive crops could suffice. The fact that the fibres are actually plasticised has finally led to its reclassification in some countries, and the trendy panda wanna-bes are realising they were conned. Should have worn hemp! It's been a fibre of choice for over 2,000 years, and was the world's most traded commodity.

But bamboo has many good qualities to it. Its shoots are edible, and make a great ingredient in stir fries etc. It is also very fast growing, gaining up to a metre a day.

Previously on this site I noted the staff at Eco in Chiswick were riding bamboo bikes, which cost about 3,000 pounds sterling. Now this is catching on in the US. A recent article by Ian Ritz in The Epoch Times notes two American companies, Masueli Bikes of California and The Bamboo Bike Studio of New York, which are now supplying these. The advantage to the rider is flexibility, it makes for a smoother ride over rough terrain. But this is not such a new idea; the first bamboo bikers got their start on 26 April, 1864. And of course this is an environmentally friendly use of bamboo, as opposed to making it into a plastic and extruding it as a textile fibre.

Bike frames is one use that hemp does not have, as the stalks are much thinner. The record for a hemp stem is about 3 inches, but even then, the character of the stem, with the outer bast fibres and an inner spongy core known as the hurd, does not lend itself to bike frames. The cellulose content does increase with age, so overgrown hemp stems may have more applications than we know, but for now, bamboo reigns in the making of natural fibre bike frames. It has found another niche for itself and I hope this catches on. Nettles, banana leaves, and even hemp do not compare.

CAMELIA NOTES ON HEMP AND COTTON

In the August issue of Camelia Jilly Cholmondeley and her hemp bedsheets are featured. Gill Dexter writes about Jilly's interest in hemp which started when she was working in PR for environmental charities. Looking at the destruction of the Aral Sea, which came about as a result of cotton production, she realised we needed to start using a better textile. Dexter notes"...cotton is one of the thirstiest crops on the planet. - Unesco estimates that to produce enough cotton for an average t-shirt weighing 500g, 4,100 litres of water are required. Sadly, organic cotton, hailed by many as an ecologically sound alternative is even worse - the absence of pesticides means the yield is lower, so the water consumption for an organic t-shirt is higher still. Yet by contrast, the World Wildlife Fund say that a t-shirt produced using 55% hemp and 45 % cotton would use just 1,600 litres of water in its production."

The article then goes into the history of hemp and the reasons for hemp suppression, especially in the US where it is still illegal to grow. This means that the likes of Jilly Cholmondeley must source their hemp from China and Italy. She was able to find suppliers after visiting the Premiere Vision Textile Fair in Paris, where she met someone who supplied hemp to Giorgio Armani. Hemp's wicking and anti-microbial qualities were of interest to her, and the latter she had tested by the Jodrell laboratory at Kew Gardens, which confirmed that it did indeed contain anti-microbial qualities. On a tangential, more personal note, I have noticed over the years that hemp leaves left in water have not attracted the usual foetid smells that other leaves do, and that when moths attacked my rice and wheat flour, the hemp flour was untouched. This may not be a scientific conclusion, but it is worth noting and following up. Will do, one of these days...

But getting back to the article, and again on a personal note, I have had the pleasure of meeting Jilly and can see she is quite sincere and knowledgeable. She sells her wares on the net at www.jillycholmondeley.com and also in shops such as Eco, at 213 Chiswick High Street, W4 - www.eco-age.com

For other posts on this blog about Jilly Cholmondeley, Eco, or cotton, click on tags below

KOSHER PAPER

Just got the invite from Eco, and though it was not on hemp paper, it was certainly unique: elephant dung. The pachyderm scat is my pass to a great night of meeting fellow environmentalists and the press.

Speaking of paper, Zac Goldsmith replied to the petition several of us signed asking for the involvement of the Ecologist. Zac recognised the Treefree paper we used, made by John Hanson, who knows his uncle well.

My own collection of hemp paper was added to recently by a few sheets of handmade paper from South Dakota, made by the Lakota Indians, the folks who want their land back from the settlers who grabbed it a century or so ago. Bobby Pugh of The Hemp Shop emailed me to tell me Wookey Hole, a specialy paper company in the UK, is set to close, so I am running out to order any of their remaining stock of hemp paper.

When I get time I will then collate them as swatches in a book on hemp paper. And if I get a large enough living room, I will put in an elephant and feed it hemp. Their stomachs are natural paper pulpers. The dried dung is then pulped and made into sheets, the cellulose having been treated already in the digestion process. Of course, I'll have to get permission from my landlord to have pets.