Bamboo's versatility is pretty impressive. Its parts are used worldwide for food, clothing, shelter, flooring, scaffolding, musical instruments, landscaping, furniture, medicine, art—the list goes on.
Equally impressive is that it is the fastest growing plant (grass) in the world, capable of growing over two feet in 24 hours. While oak takes more than 100 years to grow to maturity, bamboo can be harvested in three to five years. What’s more, it is just as strong (depending on the species) and it regenerates without replanting. It doesn't even need much help from watering, pesticides or chemicals. So it is truly a sustainable and renewable resource.
Sounds like the perfect alternative to deforestation and other energy-intensive and polluting materials and methods, right? Well, unfortunately, there are some downfalls.
Most bamboo comes from China. This means that it must travel quite a distance to reach us.
The cultivation of bamboo provides livelihood, shelter and food security to hundreds of thousands of its indigenous people. However, with loose regulations, it makes it difficult to monitor working conditions.
Another concern is the impact on the environment from the sudden popularity of bamboo and its profitability. The yield from bamboo can be 25% higher than trees, making it very profitable for manufacturers (not to mention bragging rights to say they've "gone green"). The high demand is leading to the clearing of forests to plant more bamboo, which totally defeats the purpose of using bamboo as an alternative to trees! If this continues, diminishing biodiversity will start to creep up in China. Another by-product of demand has been the introduction of chemical fertilizers to produce higher yields.
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None of this means that bamboo should be taboo. It just means that we need to be informed, responsible consumers. Buy bamboo from the U.S. whenever possible. When this isn't possible, or if rationalization prevails that the long-distance traveled outweighs the evils of a standard, local product, then go to the manufacturers' websites before making your purchase. If they are concerned about where their bamboo comes from and how it is harvested, they will most likely say so. Certifications, specific practices and/or philosophies will be cited. (An excellent example of this is on Smith & Fong's website.) On the flipside, withholding our purchasing dollars from companies with unsavory practices should hopefully keep the bamboo boom under control.
Tune in next week for Part II where I will follow up with bamboo products and manufacturers that use socially and environmentally responsible practices.
