[Greenbuilding] Bamboo flooring -- no magic bullet

[Keith Winston]

There's been a lot of discussion on Bamboo on this list, I believe. As 
to how green it is, I think some of the relevant factors are:

It is touted as "one of the fastest growing plants" blah blah blah. Who 
cares how many feet a day it can grow? Certainly the more interesting 
number is how many tons of biomass per acre per year. It doesn't seem to 
do much better (if at all) than hardwoods in this regard. The other 
related question is what it does to the soil/local ecology

"It doesn't require any agricultural inputs, it's a benign crop, it 
grows wild" -- well, maybe before you inject it into the global trade 
system in massive quantities. All the issues of forestry: monocropping, 
pesticides, clearcutting wild forests to make way for plantations, have 
been reported with bamboo.

Much of it is shipped from China. There are several un-green aspects to 
this.

There is a growing US bamboo manufactury. Is it raised sustainably? What 
does it do to the soil? What are the impacts of the bamboo flooring 
manufacturing industry (which uses lots of glue presumably) vs. hardwood 
(as one alternative)?

I'm not really sure of the answers to many of these questions, but what 
I noticed abruptly a few years ago was that I wasn't asking them: that 
somehow the "bamboo is the solution to our flooring problems, 'coz it 
grows 50 feet a minute" line hypnotized me, along with almost everyone 
else in the green building world. I still don't see serious questions 
asked and answered most of the time wrt bamboo.

2 cents... Keith


> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:03:44 -0400
> From: <mebeddoe at rochester.rr.com>
> Subject: [Greenbuilding] Bamboo Flooring
> To: "Greenbuilding List" <greenbuilding at listserv.repp.org>
> Message-ID: <009e01c7aded$9096ba00$6901a8c0 at rochester.rr.com>
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>
> Hello all - would anyone care to offer opinions regarding bamboo flooring?  It's touted as a greener alternative to wood, and I wonder if anyone who's experienced the material can speak to whether they found that to be likely.  I know that's certainly a judgement call; still, if you have any info I'd love to hear from you, on list or off.  Thanks much.
> Martha Beddoe
> mebeddoe at rochester.rr.com
> Peace is every step - Thich Nhat Hanh
>
>