Our reduced landfill pledge:Alki Bike and Board has pledged to reuse or recycle nearly all of the residual materials that come from being a business of our size. Efforts such as reducing our manufactures packaging by purchasing with companies that also work toward that goal as well as asking our suppliers to change their packaging, reusing inner tubes for new products which in turn we purchase for consumer product that completes the cycle, Recycling of all metal, tires, paper and cardboard, (cardboard makes very good garden mulch and our cardboard can be found in various urban farms, P-patches and backyard gardens throughout West Seattle). Many bicycle parts and tires have some life left in them which we put out for free reuse or what we call our “freecycle” department. Our goal to reduce, reuse and recycle has achieved a reality that our significant size business now has a landfill pick up of one 90 gallon container once per month. |
We are still working to reduce to ZERO gallons per month. |
Is there a renewable manufacturing material we have overlooked?
A short film commissioned by INBAR for the World Expo in Shanghai, profiling the many innovative uses for bamboo and rattan including surfboards, bicycles and building materials.
Today, there are no 100% “green” solutions for creating fabrics: organic and transitional cottons require large amounts of land and water; recycled P.E.T. (polyethylene terephthalate) is still a chemically driven, petroleum-based material; and many hemp and bamboo fabrics require a less-than-ideal pulping process.
When looking at the current options for environmentally “friendlier” fabrics, our choice came down to the material that provided the best blend of ecological and performance benefits. That was bamboo; a material we’ve come to see as today’s most promising alternative. Below are some of the facts that drove our decision to use bamboo as the principle raw material in our line.
The Ecological Benefits of Using Bamboo as a Raw MaterialRenewable – The bamboo used for apparel production is the fastest growing plant known to man, growing up to 4 feet (122 cm) per day, and rapidly reaching heights over 40 feet. Because of this rapid growth rate and the amount of vertical biomass created, bamboo is able to deliver far more usable material per acre than any other raw material available, making it today’s most renewable alternative. Bamboo is also self-regenerating, so it can be harvested and, in most cases, will simply re-grow without replanting.
Sustainable – Bamboo cultivation requires zero pesticides or chemical fertilizers to achieve its amazing growth rate and renewability. Hence, it is inherently organic. In contrast, it takes 1/3 of a pound of chemicals to produce enough conventional cotton for one t-shirt. Cotton production is responsible for 16% of the world’s insecticide use, more than any other single crop, while covering only 2.5% of the world’s cultivated land. Much of these chemicals run off into our waterways, harming humans and the natural environment. In addition, bamboo requires much less land and water (as a ratio to usable fiber produced per acre), than cotton, organic cotton, and other alternative fibers. In fact, it takes 15,000 liters of water to grow 1 kg of cotton or organic cotton. Some of this water is piped in from critical watersheds, as cotton is typically grown on arid lands. In contrast, bamboo requires only natural rainfall.
