How sustainable are All About Sleep's products?
Bamboo sustainability
Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants in the world and the most resource efficient plant on earth. Our moso bamboo is sourced from FSC-certified sustainable forests, organically grown, without the need for pesticides or toxic chemicals.
Bamboo also has relatively low water needs, especially compared to cotton and most other crops. It does extremely well in impoverished soils and its roots help retain water in a watershed area due to their tight hold on the soil.
The entire plant is never harvested and regrowth occurs naturally and rapidly, very much like cutting grass in a garden which will grow back within a very short timespan. As a natural cellulose fibre it is also biodegradable in soil and the decomposition process doesn’t cause any pollution to the environment.
Are we depriving pandas of their food source?! Pandas consume a mostly vegetarian diet and a giant panda can eat between 13–42 kgs of bamboo per day. They consume a handful of types of bamboo such as the arrow bamboo and black bamboo. Arrow bamboo is a staple food source for pandas and is abundantly available throughout remote mountainous regions of China. The supply of this type of bamboo is higher than consumption. The moso bamboo that we use is specifically used in the textile industry for the production of fabric. It grows up to 5 metres in height so is too tall for the pandas to feed on.
We use an environmentally friendly, non toxic chemical process to convert bamboo to fibre. We start by shaving our premium bamboo into soft fibres instead of simply chopping it up, using a patented machine process. We then carefully dissolve the fibre to turn it into pulp. Once the bamboo pulp is cool and dry, we turn it into incredibly soft thread and weave into beautiful fabric. Our bamboo products are certified to the Oeko-Tex Standard 100. This is labeled as: “Confidence in Textiles. Tested for Harmful Substances according to Oeko-Tex Standard 100.” The list of criteria contains over 100 test parameters for harmful substances to assure that the textiles are not harmful to health.
Packaging and marketing sustainability
Product packaging
Our bamboo products are enclosed in their own reusable organic bamboo self bag with rope and card tags.
Packaging material
We carefully wrap our products in 100% recycled and acid free tissue paper and our stickers are made from recycled paper. Both are also recyclable, biodegradable and compostable.
Postal boxes and mailing bags
Our postage boxes are made from a blend of recycled board and sustainable UK FSC certified materials. The boxes are 100% recyclable and biodegradable, using a closed looped recycling programme, with all production waste going to UK paper mills for recycling. Our postage mailers are made of cornstarch and are 100% compostable. They have ‘TÜV OK Compost Home’ certification, and also ‘European Standard EN 13432’ this means anyone can compost them in their own compost bin at home and the bags will decompose completely without producing toxic residues in the process.
Marketing material
All of our product information and marketing material is printed in the UK on Woodland Trust Certified paper and card, which is also fully recyclable and biodegradable. Our aim is to lower our printing impact on the environment by reducing our printed material and increasing our online and social media marketing.