Bamboo: Is It Really As Green As It Is Made Out To Be? Exclusive Home Design

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Bamboo: Is It Really As Green As It Is Made Out To Be?

Posted August 12th, 2010 by Lilly Kibble No Comments »

Apartment Therapy recently asked the question and concluded that “Bamboo isn’t always better.” Like everything in building and life, there are tradeoffs and compromises. TreeHugger and Planet Green have been looking at this issue for a number of years; do we agree with their answers? 1. Is bamboo more durable than the other material you’re considering?

Bamboo has been marketed as being harder than wood; it is not necessarily. The darker it is, the longer it has been carbonized, and the softer it is. Many think the stuff is going to be hard and impervious to denting and it just isn’t. It is also harder to refinish than solid wood.

Source: Ecologic flooring

2. Where and how is the bamboo harvested?

AT suggests that there are no CO2 savings from using bamboo; “The shipping alone can negate any carbon savings you were hoping to get. When looking at flooring sometimes a locally and sustainably harvested hard wood has a less negative impact on the environment than bamboo.”

Not necessarily so. Transport by ship is very fuel efficient; trucking wood any distance could burn a lot more fuel. But one must also look at the energy of manufacturing the stuff:

Core77 looked at bamboo flooring manufacture and described how it is cut, pressure steamed, kiln dried, and “laminated into sheets or blocks using a combination of glue, heat, and/or UV.” That takes a lot of energy and it isn’t clean.

Nor is it always harvested in a green fashion. We noted from a report by Dr. Jim Bowyer:

Recently, bamboo expansion has come at the expense of natural forests, shrubs, and low-yield mixed plantations . . . It is common practice to cut down existing trees and replace them with bamboo.

3. Are there any toxic substances in the finish?

AT gets this right, noting that it can be made with formaldehyde and other chemicals. It is not a solid bamboo material but a composite of glues, fillers and finishes. That’s why I dislike bamboo cutting boards; your knife is cutting into glue, not wood. 4. Is the product produced in a environmentally conscious way?

You just don’t know unless you look for third party certification. In Planet Green’s buy green on Bamboo Flooring, we listed a few that have FSC certification and demonstrate other responsible practices. As AT notes,

By asking these important questions and critically evaluating the life cycle, including the harvesting, manufacturing and disposal of the product, you will be better equipped to determine if bamboo is really the healthiest choice for you and the environment.

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