Why we chose bamboo
Listen to Laura Crawford, our CEO, talk about why she chose bamboo for our Mama Bamboo products.
Bamboo grows amazingly fast in its natural environment, almost 1 metre in a day. (up to 3.8cms in an hour)
No other plant on earth can do this which makes it the only woody plant that can keep up with the rate of human consumption and deforesstation.
Bamboo is a grass not a tree and it grows super fast in it's natural environment. It is organically grown without pesticides or fertilisers. Unlike many crops, including cotton, bamboo does not needs an enormous amount of water to grow.
We use 100% certified sustainable Moso bamboo for the top and bottom layers of our nappies. Most nappies use nasty plastic; polypropylene, polyethelene and polyester.
Bamboo is also 3x more effective as a carbon sink than any other tree or grass. This makes it the ideal crop for helping to lower CO2 and slowing climate change.
Bamboo is the most sustainable material we can use - and it happens to also be super soft, absorbant and breathable too.
We don't understand why all nappies aren't made from bamboo (instead of plastic).
Traditional nappies are made from oil-based single-use plastics. Each normal nappy requires 150-200ml of crude oil in its production.
And they are normally wrapped in nasty single-use plastic packaging.
Our nappy top and bottom layers are made from bamboo, as are our wipes. And our inner liners are made from corn starch based film and our core is made from 100% sustainable certified plant-based pulp. Even our nappy packaging is made from plant-based PLA.
We believe an eco-nappy should be at least 70% bio-based materials including packaging.
Unfortunately many are not.
Well, don't even get us started! Only 9% of plastic has ever been recycled - so we don't rely on recycling if we can help it.
Our nappy packaging is a 100% compostable corn starch film. Our wipes are packaged in recycled plastic (that is commonly recycled again in kerbside collections).
Thing is, lots of recyclable packaging isn't as friendly as it sounds. It's complicated - so you can read more in our blog. Basically if it's not a 1 or 2, it means it's tricky to recycle.
Environmentalist and green-parent guru, Lizzie Carr, talked about our Mama Bamboo products on Friday’s show of Steph’s Packed Lunch. Lots of you have subsequently been asking about how to compost our products…..read more here about how to effectively compost nappies and wipes at home.
Mama Bamboo have joined a small group of companies to have been certified as Ethically Accredited by the Good Shopping Guide. Mama Bamboo scored 92/100 points in the Guide's comparison of nappy brands, making us one of the highest rated brands available in the UK.