"bamboo shapes" photo courtesy of hbierau on flickr
I think bamboo is a very misunderstood material in green buildings and designs. It’s true, bamboo grows very fast therefore it makes it very sustainable (it can fully restore itself in 5 years for use). It is also a very usable and widely applied materials, ranging from home accessories, furniture, building materials, flooring, to fabrics.
However, several additional criteria are needed when you determine if a material is indeed sustainable:
- Is the material harvested correctly? The best way to determine is by looking at FSC certifications. FSC stands for Forestry Stewardship Council, meaning FSC devotes its resources to make sure the wood are harvested legally and sustainably. In certain parts of the world, wood are over-harvested and illegally. FSC works very hard to prevent that from happening.
- How is the material processed? So you have bamboo as a raw material, you still have to process it into usable finishes like flooring. Most of the time, glues are used in between layers to make the laminates that goes down on the floor. If you use chemical or toxicity filled glue, does the product remain sustainable? No.
- When was it harvested? Bamboo, if harvested early, the end product is very soft and easy to scratch. The most ideal time to harvest is during later on, when the bamboo is grown and more fibrous so it will not be scratched so easily.
- How was the material finished? Most of the time manufacturers add shine to make the products look beautiful and easier to sell. Once bought from the distributors, during installations, polish is often added or sealer is used to make sure bamboo stays beautiful and stain and scratch resistant. However, many chemical sealer produces off-gassing that gives off harmful gas (VOC: volatile organic compound) that can harm humans and pets.
A lot of consumers purchased cheap bamboo to finish their homes, but didn’t take the above points into considerations. I had staged a property once where the investor used bamboo flooring. But they bought the cheapest one possible, so during staging installations (just me and couple other crew members), our tennis shoes left footprints all over the floor which resulted another hour of mopping and clean up. When we de-install the staging 2 months later, there were already visible scratches on the floor from the open house traffic.
This doesn’t mean bamboo is a terrible finishing material to use, it’s just that you bought the lowest grade of bamboo. Also just because you used bamboo, doesn’t mean it becomes “a green feature” to sell. A lot of bamboo is often imported, so you want to look at manufacturer and labels to make sure you are getting sustainable materials.
Here is a great article from Inhabitat: Is imported bamboo really sustainable?