A lucrative market awaits natural, eco-friendly bamboo textiles.
Some 635,000 kilograms of treated bamboo fibers for the production of spun yarns will meet just 25 percent of the requirements for government uniforms alone.
This represents a huge potential and market opportunity for bamboo producers in the country, according to the Philippine Textile Research Institute (PTRI).
Bamboo has been included this year for government offices required to use natural textile fibers: 5 percent by weight for abaca, banana and pineapple and now bamboo (it’s 15 percent by weight for silk).
The inclusion of bamboo was made by the Technical Working Group working on the revised Implementing Rules and Regulations for the law prescribing the use of the Philippine tropical fabrics for the uniforms of public officials and employees.
The inclusion of bamboo helps widen the scope of textile fiber sources and promotes employment in the countryside.
PTRI has developed a simple extraction, treatment, and processing technology to transform bamboo into highly suitable fibers for eco-friendly textile.
The processing technique is suitable for remote bamboo-rich rural areas at the source and a potential winner for the bamboo textile industry.
The conventional and popular commercial process of converting bamboo into textile material is through cellulose regeneration. In this process, bamboo culms are broken down into chips, dissolved, and extruded to produce fine staples or filaments.
In the synthetic technique, new fiber properties are introduced and the natural integrity of the bamboo textile fiber is lost.
Toxic and hazardous substances are involved as well in the production of regenerated bamboo viscose fibers.
The PTRI method promotes natural textile fiber processing from bamboo. Textile scientists and engineers are now improving fiber extraction techniques for the laak (Bambusa philippinensis), anos (Schizostachyum lima (Blanco) merr.), and puser (Cyrtocholoa puser s. dransf.) bamboo species.
The extracted bamboo textile fiber is treated to obtain highly cellulosic textile fibers while preserving the inherent properties of bamboo such as antimicrobial and anti-ultraviolet properties.
The technology can be applied to the natural extraction of different bamboo species in the Philippines such as kawayan tinik (Bambusa blumeana), bolo (Gigantochloa levis), yellow bamboo (Bambusa vulgaris), and giant bamboo (Dendrocalamus asper).
The greener and milder conditions in the transformation of bamboo culms into natural textile materials promote an ecological and community-centered approach.
This puts the initiative squarely on bamboo farmers, farm owners, and textile fiber producers. It ensures that the socio-economic and environmental benefits of the bamboo textile fiber technology go to bamboo-rich rural communities.
Bamboo textiles have become increasingly popular as part of a sustainable and eco-friendly solutions to textile materials and manufacturing.
