In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

RESOURCEFUL BAMBOO WITH A LITTLE GREENWASH CAUTION

In Business, November-December, Vol. 29, No. 6, p. 24

ECOSTYLE

Delia Montgomery

There's a common and true phrase posted on most websites selling bamboo products: “Use bamboo and save a forest.” Bamboo replenishes fresh air by balancing oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is the fastest growing canopy to renew degraded areas. Today there are so many bamboo blogs and organizations that you can get lost in cyberspace.
It's fact that common hardwoods take 10 times longer to mature and bamboo clumps grow new shoots for about 75 years. One bamboo clump can produce 200 poles in five years. It takes about three years for each clump shoot to grow into a full-size hard and dense pole. Bamboo agriculture is far more business efficient than tree farming. Thankfully, there are no known GMO variants of bamboo to date.
Bamboo Living® by Bamboo Technologies (BT) discovered that Bambusa stenostachya, a species of bamboo grown in Vietnam, is excellent for building. Recently I visited Venutia Barlow's impressive bamboo home north of central east coast Hilo on Big Island, Hawaii. It was the plantation model from BambooLiving.com where you can study options and costs. It took five months to construct, disassemble and ship the dwelling from Vietnam. Freight to the Hilo port took another 30 days. Talk about efficiency, what's really incredible is that this aesthetic home was completely erected in only six days after the foundation was prepared. Venutia said the interior walls were up within six hours.
There is a total of 70 completed Bamboo Living homes on Hawaiian islands where only single walls are necessary. However, dwellings can be built with requirements for virtually any climate. I know what you're thinking. How about dreaded building code issues that seem to undermine every innovative sustainable material an architect can dream of? Well David Sands, architect and BT cofounder, pioneered international bamboo building permits and code approvals for the Vietnamese species. Yet his mission required a whopping seven years of persistence serving on committees.
The human race is blessed with such a bamboo fanatic and now we're learning what determines the sincerity of environmental claims. As a building material, you want natural borate treatments to free worries of termites and insects with antimold fungicides. Finishing coats should be VOC free. Expect to see certification officials inspecting bamboo building products soon.
Consumers can be grateful that sustainable bamboo building suppliers typically offer furniture and home accessories as well. Once environmental certification is in place for all bamboo products, shoppers will know if the decorative items they buy meet their ethical production standards.
Bamboo garments are praised for design characteristics similar to lyocell. The lyocell process is used to manufacture the Tencel® brand which is considered eco-friendly because formulations used are supposedly nontoxic to humans. Lyocell processes are closed-loop so that 99.5 percent of the chemicals are captured and recycled to be used again. In comparison to chemical bamboo fiber production, it's greener.
A new technology worthy of mention is from Greenyarn™ where they make fabric from nano particles of bamboo charcoal. They deny use of harmful chemicals, but the actual process is vague. Stay tuned.
To purchase bamboo fiber products, look for certification from an independent and reliable certification company. Currently, Oeko-Tex is the most comprehensive label for insuring that the garment is healthy for consumers. Other certification bodies are Soil Association, SKAL, or KRAV. Bamboo buyers are wise to ask specific questions about textile development in addition to a label demand.
As fashion fads go, green admiration trends shift from one of mother nature's gift to another. Bamboo is IT these days, but ecology issues will surface and green consumers will educate themselves if the manufacturing process doesn't prove satisfactory.
Bamboo business may look like a gold rush, but scrutiny is required to honestly connect it to the green market. Whether for adorning or wearing, the bottom line is to investigate and educate before making a bamboo investment.

Delia Montgomery is an environmental design consultant and ecoshopper for home, body and garden products. She is author of the Chic Eco Materials Directory. Questions or comments are welcome. Visit www.ChicEco.com or e-mail Info@ChicEco.com.