Is Bamboo the Best Sustainable Material to Use?

Ok, so the Bamboo PC was just an eco promotion. The laptop launched at the Hanover computer fair last March, with a laminated bamboo casing around a pretty conventional computer won’t make a dent in the rising tide of plastics sold around the world.

Despite not having any major eco benefits to the bamboo computers, they did give a good demonstration of what can be done with a material that versatile.

Bamboo must be the only raw material that can be used as food, clothing and building materials. One of the early light bulbs created by Edison used bamboo. Its strength and low price tag makes it a great material for building, particularly in parts of Asia where it’s used as scaffolding. The fibres of bamboo poles have high strength both in tension and compression. Bamboo has almost the same tensile strength to weight ratio as steel, plus it has roughly twice as muhc compressive strength as concrete. And now there’s a bamboo laptop!

Bamboo will please anyone whose buying eco-friendly home furnishings. To start with, it’s hightly sustainable. Some species of bamboo grow at more than a metre every day. The locals that live near this amazing species of bamboo can cut down as much as they want and still have the same sized fores t at the end of the year as they had at the beginning. On the global warming sides of things, being a plant, any product made from bamboo contains a large amount of atmospheric carbon within it. Whereas any equivalent product made from plastic actually increases the carbon level in the atmosphere!

Another point would be, because bamboo is a natural material, there are huge variations between the plants, this makes it a very difficult material to be used in mass production. You can be pretty sure that a craftsman has produced any bamboo item you buy. If you go to a reputable source you’ll also know that the craftsman got a fair wage for his or her work, and that no one was exploited by western buying power. The final thing is that you’ll be sure that the item you bought hasn’t gathered any air miles during its creation.

With eco credentials this strong, it’s a surprise bamboo built products are so beautiful. Picture a skilfully made bamboo box, lovingly lacquered with 15 layers of natural shellac. All natural and really stylish. I myself bought a fantastic, hand-crafted bamboo knife block and am seriously considering following suit with other bamboo kitchen accessories like fruit bowls. Stylish and ethical. Win.