Bedding
Bedding is a must have when you transition into college dorm life. Your bed becomes an important space in your dorm room so you want your sheets to be comfortable. However, it is also important to know about and understand what exactly you are sleeping on.
Cotton
Cotton is a pretty typical material for sheets to be made out of. Whether it be 100% cotton or a cotton blend, this is a material that is found in many of our fabrics. It is considered a good choice for many manufacturers due to certain properties such as its absorbency, strength, ability to blend, and because it is easy to dye.
While cotton is a natural fiber, and is therefore biodegradable, it also has its drawbacks (Luitel, 2012). In order to produce large amounts of cotton, producers often times need to use pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, and fertilizers that can have a negative effect on the surrounding environment. While farmers are making progress towards more efficient irrigation and fertilizing systems, the practice of cotton farming still makes a large environmental impact (Daystar et al, 2017). Cotton actually accounts for 11% of all pesticide use and 25% of all insecticide use worldwide. At the same time, the cotton industry is responsible for around 2.6% of the global water footprint (Waite, 2009). Cotton fibers also have a tendency to be irregular in length, making it somewhat difficult to work with and allowing for a high trash content. These factors, as well as the higher price for cotton, allow synthetic fibers to compete with cotton in the market (Leitel, 2012)
The actual production of the cotton can have several drawbacks as well. The manufacturing stage of cotton bedding requires high water and diesel use. The diesel will emit CO2 into the atmosphere. There is also a high energy and electricity requirement during the spinning stage of productions and high fuel and electricity needs during the weaving process (Velden et al, 2014). Cotton mill workers have also been identified as at risk for developing lung diseases. The constant inhalation of small particles of cotton dust are having negative effects on the mill workers such as asthma, bronchitis, and other respiratory ailments (Marchand et al, 2007).
Silk
Silk is one alternative to cotton sheets. Silk is produced from domesticated silkworms. They produce silk threads in the form of cocoons during their larval periods. They do this by consuming mulberry leaves. In order to retrieve the silk, the cocoons have to be cut open and the pupae are removed. The cocoons are then put into a hot bath to clean the fibers (Bourzac, 2015). If animal welfare is extremely important to you, silk bedding may not be the way to go. The attractive factors for silk bedding include water absorbency and heat resistance (Rahmathulla, 2012). It is also known for its soft texture and its luster, which are some of silk’s main drawing factors (Bourzac, 2015). Silk bedding is also considered to be “environmentally friendly” because it only requires small amounts of fertilizer and no insecticides (Popescu, 2013).
There are down sides to using silk sheets. Silk can be very expensive to produce. In order for silk to be competitive in a global market, producers will often times use cheap labor when producing these materials. At the end of the day, silk isn’t necessarily a profitable business. Much of the draw that silk has can be achieved for less money with synthetic fibers. Many of the people working in the highest silk producing areas, such as China, Japan, and Korea, are leaving the business and looking for something more profitable which may cause the price to continue to rise in the future (Popescu, 2013).
easy.
Bamboo
At first bamboo doesn’t sound like the most ideal material to make sheets out of. At first glance it appears to be a hard grass like plant that wouldn’t be very comfortable. In all reality, it may be considered the best choice between all of our four options. Bamboo is technically a grass, so it will not need to be replanted every year like other fibers such as cotton. In fact, bamboo replaces around 30% of its biomass every year and is the fastest growing plant in the world (Waite, 2009). Bamboo can be grown without taking over plow lands, which makes it an attractive choice to many producers (Fu et al, 2012). This grass does not require the use of irrigation because it is naturally sustained by rainfall. It also is known to sequester over five tons of carbon dioxide per acre while also releasing 35% more oxygen into the atmosphere than a group of trees of the equivalent size (Waite, 2009).
Bamboo has several factors that make it a good candidate for bedding. These include great thermal conductivity, resistance to bacteria, high absorbency, and it is considered to be an environmentally friendly fiber (Xiaojuan, 2011). When growing bamboo, farmers do not need to use pesticides on their crops. This is because the bamboo naturally has an antifungal and antimicrobial agent on it. The interesting part is that even after than bamboo is processed, those agents remain on the textiles, making another reason bamboo is a good candidate for textiles (Waite, 2009).
In order to use bamboo fibers, the bamboo has to be “degummed”. Conventional degumming processes require the bamboo to be boiled in concentrated alkaline solutions. These processes have their drawback. For instance, it takes a lot of energy to go through these steps while also using highly reactive chemicals to degum the bamboo. This runs the risk of hazards to the workers, the equipment, and the environment. However, steps are currently being taken to implement biotechnology that would help alleviate some of those risks during the degumming process (Fu et al, 2012).
Polyester
Polyester has become a common material that many college students bed sheets are made out of. Surprisingly enough, polyester is not made form a natural fiber at all. Polyester is actually produced from oil, which is not a renewable resource (Waite, 2009). In order to make polyester the oil has to go through a cracking process where the long hydrocarbon chains are broken into shorter, more useful chains. The polymers are then separated and oxidized. The polymers are put through an esterification process and then put through a melt polymerization process. They are then put into a solid state and spun to get the fiber. This process is incredibly energy intensive and requires higher energy inputs that producing cotton. These processes produce a lot of CO2 emissions as well as creating a lot of pollutants (Cherrett, 2005).
There are benefits to using polyester instead of natural fibers. For instance, polyester does not require the use of crop land because it does not need to be grown. Also, the only use for water in the process is for cooling. Much of this water is actually reused and returned to the system. Water is also created during polycondensation processes while making polyester, therefore water use is minimal (Cherrett, 2005). Synthetic fibers, such as polyester, are able to compete with natural fibers because they can produce the same look and feel at a percentage of the price, making them an attractive option for college students (Popescu, 2013).
What We Use
Based on the information we found on bedding, we have concluded that bamboo sheets are the best option for sustainable bedding. The production of bamboo bedding has little CO2 output because it requires no plow land to grow (Fu et al, 2012). The only water that they use is when they are separating the fibers from each other since the bamboo is sustained through rainwater (Waite, 2009). The only pollution is from some of the chemicals in the soda baths used to separate the fibers if it is not properly disposed of (Fu et al, 2012). At the end of the day, bamboo is a grass so it is technically biodegradable and won’t have extreme adverse effects on the environment when it is disposed of (Waite, 2009). They are only a little bit more expensive than cotton or polyester sheets, but can be worth the extra money.
References
Bourzac, K. (2015). Spiders: Web of intrigue. Nature, 519(7544), S4. doi:10.1038/519S4a
Cherrett, N., Barrett, J., Clemett, A., Chadwick, M., & Chadwick, M. J. (2005). Ecological Footprint and Water Analysis of Cotton, Hemp and Polyester (Rep.). Retrieved https://www.sei-international.org/mediamanager/documents/Publications/SEI-Report-EcologicalFootprintAndWaterAnalysisOfCottonHempAndPolyester-2005.pdf
Daystar, J. S., Barnes, E., Hake, K., & Kurtz, R. (2017). Sustainability Trends and Natural Resource Use in U.S. Cotton Production. Bioresources, 12(1), 362-392. doi:10.15376/biores.12.1.362-392
Fu, J., Li, X., Gao, W., Wang, H., Cavaco-Paulo, A., & Silva, C. (2012). Bio-processing of bamboo fibres for textile applications: a mini review. Biocatalysis & Biotransformation, 30(1), 141-153. doi:10.3109/10242422.2012.650450
Luitel, K. P. (2012). Economic Potential For Cotton Utilization in Alternative Nonwoven Textile Technologies (Unpublished master's thesis). Texas Tech University. Retrieved November 4, 2017, from https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/ttu-ir/bitstream/handle/2346/47003/LUITEL-THESIS.pdf?sequence=1
Marchand, G., Lalonde, M., Beaudet, Y., Boivin, G., Villeneuve, S., & Pépin, C. (2007). Documentation of the endotoxins present in the ambient air of cotton fiber textile mills in Québec. Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 9(8), 869. doi:10.1039/b704087c
Popescu, A. (2013). Trends in World Silk Cocoons and Silk Production and Trade, 2007-2010. Scientific Papers: Animal Science & Biotechnologies / Lucrari Stiintifice: Zootehnie Si Biotehnologii, 46(2), 418-423.
Rahmathulla, V. K. (2012). Management of Climatic Factors for Successful Silkworm (Bombyx mori L.) Crop and Higher Silk Production: A Review. Psyche: A Journal Of Entomology, 1-12. doi:10.1155/2012/121234
Velden, N., Patel, M., & Vogtländer, J. (2014). LCA benchmarking study on textiles made of cotton, polyester, nylon, acryl, or elastane. International Journal Of Life Cycle Assessment, 19(2), 331-356. doi:10.1007/s11367-013-0626-9
Waite, M. (2009). Sustainable Textiles: the Role of Bamboo and a Comparison of Bamboo Textile Properties. Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management, 6(2). Retrieved from http://ojs.cnr.ncsu.edu/index.php/JTATM/article/viewFile/651/458
Xiaojuan, M., Liulian, H., Yanxi, C., Shilin, C., & Lihui, C. (2011). Preparation of Bamboo Dissolving Pulp for Textile Production. Part 1. Study on Prehydrolysis of Green Bamboo for Producing Dissolving Pulp. Bioresources, 6(2), 1428-1439.