Sleeping Bag: TNF Blue Kazoo
19th Oct 2009
Back in September last year we reviewed the TNF Blue Kazoo, an exciting new bag for the ‘fairer sex’. It received a favourable review, with a roomy foot area, no snagging material, toasty and plenty of comfortable nights’ sleep. The Green Kazoo is its environmentally friendly cousin. Made from 100% recycled fabrics it is essentially the same bag, but a whole lot ‘greener’. Suffice to say that it is green in colour, and lest anybody seeing the bag not realise, its foot is plastered with some fairly gaudy text explaining just how eco-friendly the bag is. TNF claim that by using recycled fabrics, each bag reduces energy consumption by 84 percent and CO2 output by 77 percent. Presumably this is in relation to it’s blue cousin. The savings come at a cost though. Whilst the Blue retails at £139.99, the Green is a fairly significantly more expensive £199.99. £60 for peace of mind that you are doing your bit. Put that way it’s quite possibly worth paying the extra, but I suspect many won’t.
So what do they mean by 100% recycled fabrics? The shell itself is 100% post-consumer recycled polyester ripstop. The fill is pure goose down so those with an aversion to being complicit in the trade of goose farming will not be tempted, and argue that the bag should really have been filled with an equivalently friendly material. Given that the weight of the fill accounts for a fairly substantial part of the bag’s weight it brings into question how TNF have arrived at their figures quoted above of 84 and 77 percent. Presumably these relate only to the shell, and not to the fill, which is the same as for the Blue.
All in all an interesting experiment, but one that only really scratches the surface of the producing environmentally friendly kit. Let’s hope it is the start of a bigger campaign.
