Walmart and Kohl's Busted Selling Rayon as Bamboo

[TheBlackAdder]

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[Warpy]

1. OK, I'm one of those dfiber people

who looks at anything fibrous and wonders how it would spin up and what I could do with it.

Bamboo is basically a grass. There are fibers, but they're tough has hell and relatively short, at least compared to lime tree or linen, which can be used as they are after they're separated out by a process I won't bore you with here.

Bamboo fibers need one hell of a lot of processing, something that turns them into (ta da) a form of rayon. So this doesn't surprise me, I doubt Wally's or Kohl's knew until an analysis turned it up.

I love me some rayon and it doesn't much mater what plant fiber it's from,so this doesn't upset me all that much. Once it hits that level of processing, I doubt it matters. Rayon is kind of a catchall term, the original fibers can be wood, agricultural waste, or bamboo. I particularly love soy rayon, spinning it in with other fibers for shine and sparkle.

This is a tempest in a teapot, they're being fined for selling normal rayon as fad rayon. it's all RAYON.

[Phoenix61]

2. Things you didn't know about rayon.

Rayon, invented in 1846, began to be manufactured in the United States in 1911. Called artificial silk until 1924 when the name rayon was coined, rayon was a less expensive alternative to silk clothing and accessories.
Rayon is a semi-synthetic cellulosic fiber used widely in everything from clothing construction to bedsheets to tire cord. While rayon is made from natural materials (like beech trees or bamboo), it undergoes intense chemical processing, making it a manufactured fiber.

So if the rayon was made out of bamboo I can see where they thought it would be ok.

[jmowreader]

3. It appears the environmental claims are what got them

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/04/ftc-uses-penalty-offense-authority-seek-largest-ever-civil-penalty-bogus-bamboo-marketing-kohls

The rayon is indeed made of bamboo. Problem is, they were claiming the cloth was made using eco-friendly processes. Turning bamboo, which is a very rough fiber, into the soft, luxurious products consumers demand requires extremely heavy-duty chemicals that are not eco-friendly in the least.