Dare to wear longer? T shirts you won’t want to take off

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At BAM we’re reducing every impact of our clothes right through to the emissions from washing them.  

Does laundry make that much difference? Two words: Um, yeah.

We worked with industry experts to calculate the carbon footprint of our clothes which revealed that 14.8%* of the emissions created through the lifetime of your T shirt is created by you sticking it in the washing machine.

You understood that right. From growing the crops, harvesting them, turning the bamboo to fibre and the fibre to fabric, designing the clothing and stitching the fabric, shipping it to our warehouse and then on to you so you can wear and wash it… in all of that, 14.8% of emissions of our clothing are from you washing it.

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Jaw on the floor? There’s more.

That’s if you wash at 30°c and line dry. If you up the temperature to 40°c and tumble dry, you multiply your carbon emissions by four. You could drive eleven kilometres instead.

It’s easy to see how quickly we could halve those emissions simply by washing every second wear.

So that’s our challenge. Do you dare to wear longer?

We’re not suggesting you lose friends over this. A T-shirt starts to smell when air hits the moisture of your sweat. With synthetics, the moisture sits on the top of the fabric. It’s why it feels damp and gets smelly. Our bamboo jersey has a fibre structure which absorbs moisture really effectively. It’s 40% more absorbent than organic cotton. As the air can’t get to the moisture (your sweat), the odour causing bacteria can’t do its thing and so your T-shirt stays fresh. As do you.

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Can you wear your bamboo T-shirt twice before washing? Three times? Dare you wear it a week?

Before you answer, let us tempt you further,

We’ve created limited edition T shirts from our supersoft bamboo Air jersey. There’s a choice of three stand-out designs from two incredible artists based in BAM’s hometown of Plymouth, Neasden Control Centre and Studio Luz. 

So you won’t want to take them off.

Do less laundry. Cut your carbon emissions. Look and smell amazing doing it.

*Based on BAM’s 2019 footprint calculations using 50 washes at 30°c in an average size modern washing machine

**Washed at 30°c and line dried.A single wash at 30°c uses 46 litres of water and creates 600g of carbon emissions. Up to 700,000 micro-fibres are released. Bamboo is biodegradable, so you don’t have to worry about plastic making its way into the oceans. But microfibres are still released.

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