Daruma Green Store · Materials & Sustainability · ~900 words · 4 min read
Written by Marcia, co-founder of Daruma Green Store
Almost everything you wear on the mat without a gi is made of plastic. Most people never think about it.
Rashguards. Grappling shorts. Spats. Compression tops. Walk into any no-gi class and nearly everyone in the room is wearing polyester, elastane, or a blend of the two — fabrics spun from petroleum. It's the industry default, and for good reason: stretch fabric needs to move with the body, and synthetic fiber has been the easiest way to get that.
But there's a growing, genuine conversation happening among BJJ practitioners about what that actually means — not just for the planet, but for what's touching their skin for hours a week, every week, for years.
Why Polyester Became the Default
It's not a conspiracy — it's physics and cost. Polyester and spandex/elastane stretch, recover their shape, wick moisture, and are cheap to produce at scale. For a sport built on tight, non-baggy clothing (so nothing catches a finger or a foot mid-scramble), stretch fabric solved a real functional problem. The industry standardized on synthetic fiber decades ago and never really looked back.
The tradeoff got quietly accepted along with it: synthetic fabric sheds microscopic fibers with every wash and every wear, and it's made from and often treated with the kind of petrochemical inputs that a growing body of research is taking a closer look at. None of that was really up for discussion when the alternative was "wear a cotton t-shirt and hope it doesn't rip."
What Natural Fiber Actually Offers Here
Hemp and bamboo don't solve this perfectly — we'll get to that — but they solve it more than most people realize. Both are plant fibers, not petroleum derivatives. They biodegrade. They don't shed plastic microfiber the way polyester does. And as we've covered elsewhere, they're naturally antibacterial and odor-resistant, without any chemical finish.
Our Bamboo Rashguard is 95% bamboo, 5% spandex. That 5% is a real, honest tradeoff — it's there because a small amount of elastane is what lets the fabric hold a compression fit and move with a scramble without sagging or tearing. We could make a 100% bamboo rashguard, but it would fit more like a loose t-shirt than a rashguard, and we don't think that's actually what most people training no-gi want.
So the honest framing is: not plastic-free, but a 95% reduction from a fully synthetic garment — while keeping the fit and function that make a rashguard actually work for grappling.
Does It Perform the Same?
Close, with real differences worth knowing before you buy. Bamboo fabric breathes and wicks moisture differently than polyester — it tends to feel cooler and softer against the skin, and as covered in our piece on why gear smells, it resists odor build-up in a way synthetic fabric structurally can't. Where it differs: a 95/5 bamboo-spandex blend has slightly less aggressive compression recovery than a high-percentage synthetic rashguard built specifically for competition-grade compression. For most training, that difference is negligible. For athletes chasing maximum compression for a specific competitive reason, it's worth knowing going in.
Why We Didn't Go for 100% Claims
We could market this as "plastic-free" and round the 5% down to zero in the copy. We're not going to. The same standard we hold for our gi composition — publishing exact percentages, not vague marketing language — applies here. 95% bamboo is a genuinely different product from a standard rashguard. It's not the same as 100%, and we'd rather you know that going in than find out later.
- 95% bamboo in our rashguard
- 5% spandex — for fit and compression only
- 0% polyester
- 100% hemp in our fight shorts
What This Means If You're Trying to Reduce Synthetic Fiber
You're not going to get to zero plastic in a no-gi kit and still have something that performs like modern grappling gear — and we don't think anyone should pretend otherwise. But there's a real, meaningful difference between a rashguard that's 95% plant fiber and one that's 100% petroleum-derived, worn for hours a week, year after year.
If that difference matters to you, hemp fight shorts (100%, zero synthetic) paired with a bamboo rashguard (95%) gets you about as close to a fully natural no-gi kit as currently exists without sacrificing fit.
FAQ: Plastic-Free and Sustainable No-Gi Gear
Is there such a thing as a fully plastic-free rashguard?
Not really, if you want it to hold a compression fit — a small percentage of spandex/elastane is what makes stretch fabric work. The realistic goal is minimizing synthetic content, not eliminating it entirely.
Are bamboo rashguards as durable as polyester ones?
Bamboo fiber is strong and holds up well to regular training, though a 95/5 blend has slightly less compression recovery than a high-synthetic competition rashguard.
What's the most plastic-free no-gi kit available?
100% hemp fight shorts paired with a 95% bamboo rashguard is about as close as you can get while still having gear that fits and performs like modern no-gi apparel.
As close to plastic-free as no-gi gear gets — without sacrificing fit.
95% Bamboo Rashguard + 100% Hemp Fight Shorts. Ships from EU in 24h.
Browse every colour and sleeve length in the BJJ Rashguards collection, or see the full no-gi kit in Shop the No-Gi Kit →
