What do you think about bamboo?

[Lucywu2012]

Bamboo is no longer just a delicacy for pandas or a collectible for sinophiles.
The environmental movement is embracing bamboo — it's actually a type of gigantic grass with hollow, jointed, woody stems — as a raw material source for organic products.
Bamboo truly is a remarkable renewable resource. It is a centuries old material that has been and continues to be used by over half the world's population for applications as varied as food, shelter, fuel and clothing. These applications make bamboo a vital non-timber, non-petroleum resource. With a tensile strength superior to steel, it is one of the most versatile and durable natural resources in the world.
Now, can you tell me what do you think of bamboo? Can you share your opinions with me? I'd like to listen to all of yours ideas.

[maymay]

As you say, bamboo is a material which is good for enviroment, so I also like it much!

[leopard777]

Bamboo.
I live often in China. They don’t use it very often in fact.
iron replace it every where.
I never saw clothes made of bamboo.
they still use it sometimes as scaffoldind. For the litlle building maintainance, 4 stairs.
They built scaffolding made of bamboo, and then painted the building.
but now 90 percent of the scaffolding are made of iron.

Chinese use the bamboo also in the smmer. This country is very hot.
the summer season last 5 or 6 months. So hot as in Africa.
the blanket made of cotton are too hot. it burns literaly, you sweat.
when the weather is too hot, cotoon doesn't work. Uncomfortable.
Then they put a kind of carpet made of thausand of
bamboo slices on the bed. Looks like our beach carpet.

and it’s efficent. The bed is cool and you don’t sweat. very confortable.

In China thyey make also some mini furnitures with bamboo. Not often.
Like some mini boxes, finely carved, for the tea set. Pretty tea set mini tables.

but there is a big problem with bamboo. It decay after 5 years.
After 5 years your bamboo items is rotten. the color has gone.
You can't polish it and have the color back. the wood you can polish it every 5 years, and have the color back.
The bamboo you can't. after 5 years it's rotten.
A wooden furniture, can last 100 years, if you maintain it. If you painted it with a good chemical
product.
your bamboo furniture will be rotten after 5 years.
It’s not a long term material.

The Chinese use mainly the bamboo for their chopstick production.
this country waste a lot. They have no idea about environment.
everything is disposable. they don't care the environment.
most of the people in China don't know that plastic is made of oil.

Just in a restaurant they don’t want to wash anything. They make it easy.
They have no idea what using less packaging as possible means.
then they drink in a disposable plastic glass, they eat in a disposable polystyrene plate, and they
use disposable bamboo chopsticks.
An enormous waste. Billions of disposable bamboo chopstick used everyday just because they
don’t want to wash normal reusable chopsticks.

I have seen a coutry who builded an experimental building with bamboo all aroud it’s buiding.
,they thaught it will be thermic efficient.
that was so ugly. And this rotten effect after 5 years.
No it’s just a fashion. Every boddy speak about bamboo now.
2 years from now people will talk about another thing.

[wentworth]

I am a fan of bamboo, not only is it good for the environment it is really strong, I have even seen a bike made of it - but I would use bamboo.

[nrdthxpr]

Bamboo is great, but like the human population that exploits it, too much of any good thing turns it bad.

[leopard777]

You know a furniture made out of real wood last 30 years.
A furniture made out of bamboo can last only 5 years.
Bamboo get rotten after only 5 years.
Bamboo decays very quickly. It's just a fashion. Within two years people will spoke about something else.

[PaulWatson]

Bamboo can stand for a century. Like Las Piñas Bamboo Organ was made of bamboo.

History tells that: A priest, Padre Diego Cera began working on the organ in 1816, while the church was still under construction where the bamboo is in.

Having previously built organs in Manila with some organ stops made of bamboo, he decided to built one using only bamboo for the pipes since bamboo was abundant in the area and used for hundred of items.

The organ was first heard in 1821 yet without the horizontal trumpets.
He completed the work in 1824 after finally deciding to use metal for the horizontal trumpets whose character of sound he could not get with bamboo resonators.
These bamboo resonators now stand as the rear facade pipes of the organ.

Thus till now the bamboo organ is presently working and maintained by Diego Cera Organbuilders, Inc.

See how amazing bamboo are..... :)

[Val]

I agree that bamboo is a great renewable material, mainly for use near where it grows so prolifically because of the CO2 output of shipping. If it rots in 5 years, it goes back to the soil, and is cheaply replaced by what has grown. There are uses and ways where it lasts much longer, too. I like bamboo and I like hemp, another great renewable resource.

[JWRoof]

I have several bamboo shirts and they have a nice heavy feel, also bamboo flooring has a great calming look to it. But as a landscaping be warned some of them can take over a yard very quickly. You may need to have a way to block the roots from spreading.

JW

[Kenneth Vronek]

I have bamboo in my backyard no thanks to an old neighbor who thought it's be great to plant some all across his back fence. Such a pain in the butt to dig out. I'm not against bamboo, I just don't want it in my yard.

[leopard777]

Yes houses made out of wood last 30 years.
Means you need to rebuilt it three times in your entire live.

Houses made out of Bamboo last only 10 years. Bamboo and coconuts are the quickes to decay. A burglar can cut the wals of your bamboo house and get into your bamboo house by using a nail file.

And oh surprise, we just made a descovery : a house made out of concreate can last 200 years.!!!
Wao! what a discovery. Then i will make my house out of concreate!!!

What a discovery concreate last longer than paper, coconuts or bamboo.
Concreate is so good.

With people like you, their is a long way to go until the environment issues will be solved. Until the forest cover will be back again.

[Val]

Actually, concrete, made at its strongest and sealed, could last as long as the hardest volcanic rock. 200,000 years of exposure in most places, ending up as a cap rock on some tower formation, like future hoodoos.
There still is the problem of what to do with the billions of tires around the world. Perhaps, combining the three types of construction, rammed earth tires with bamboo, reinforced concrete bond beams and roof.
‪This Is Action‬‏ - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMiDKxqQKs)

[leopard777]

VAl you haven't seen it on TV, they use dynamite to destroy buildings.
This buildings collapse within ten seconds with the dynamite. You didn't know that?
The houses we built right now cannot last longer than 200 years old. the concrete crumble.
The whole planet makes houses and buildings out of concrete. That won't stop. because it's a super good material.
Think a bit. The price of the ground is so expensive in the cities that humans will always destroy 200 years old buildings and rebuilt new. Because of demography increase.

Bamboo, you are so ridiculous and fancy with your Bamboo. Bamboo it's a joke. It decays so quickly. Ten
years and it’s just a rotten piece of moisture.

People you are interested in Environment, Then stop eat meat at first. That will help the planet. That will
keep the animals out of their misery.
Your fancy bamboo stories.

[nrdthxpr]

Val,

You're right, reinforced tires are used to build ranch style houses. I visited such a house a couple of years ago and it's solid and cool. Bamboo grows to such density that not even small animals can crawl through it. But when kept in tight control it is a usful material.

[leopard777]

i remember ,i have seen pictures from some others freaks people in the 80s, they used to build houses with matches.
the density of the matches was so high with the glue, that the animal couldn't eat it within a day.

And i have seen also pictures from others weird people who buy armed tires in Mexico, and transfor it into sandwichs and french fries shop cabin along the local highway
That's frankly ugly.

With the card board roll of your toilet paper, you know, if you colect one million of them, you can built a 10 floor building. even a rocket. The aunts don't like it.

People please, for god sake, don't talk about environment protection. You make things worse.

[Val]

There is nothing weird about what "the Garbage Warrior" architect, Mike Reynolds is doing. Cleaning up the used tires and re-using them is their best use. Bamboo could be used for decorative ceilings, floors and walls, furniture, and garden trellis material. Concrete has a high energy of manufacture, and is brittle, but can be used in eco-homes like the Earthship and straw bale homes as foundation, bond beam, and as stucco, surfacing or sub-surfacing. Bamboo is often used for pins with straw bale construction.
Leopard777, you are sounding scatter brained, please try to contribute logically. Thank you.

[nobi]

Bamboo and other things like this will not be used by the majority of people so this will not save the planet. This is all so ridiculous and small minded.
Just stop overpopulation first, get rid of the atomic reactors and use solar energy to the fullest possible, only then we have a chance.

[Val]

Hi, Nobi! I agree, except it is the coal fired power plants that must go. The Gen4 fast reactors need to replace much of them. They are very safe and use Gen1,2 & 3 reactor waste, and turn it into very low short lived and much smaller amount of waste. There exists hundreds of years supply in existing waste, then they can actually run on the low radioactivity of sea water indefinitely. Solar is only feasible in the sunbelt areas, wind in certain other areas, and tidal, and wave in still others.
Overpopulation must be reversed toward long term sustainable population. Transport and farming has to transition to non-oil using, non-CO2 producing methods as much as possible. Massive composting efforts, electric and biofuel-electric hybrids, sails, and close by human and animal power for agriculture. Much more efficient and water recycling systems, drip irrigation and a transition to steady state environmental economics. All are needed simultaneously.
Switching to more bamboo use and BS green cleaning products are not going to get humanity out of the population crash and thermageddon. It will take everything above, and more.

[nrdthxpr]

Val,

I'm puzzled as to the process of "melting" bamboo and other woods into a woody substance that can be molded into any shape needed. But it makes the finished product more expensive, doesn't it, or does it?

[Val]

The only product I have seen is made from sawdust and recycled plastic. It is heavier and not a strong as real wood and costs more. It is advertized to last longer, however, and be permanently rot proof.
I would imagine that the energy to powder bamboo and mix it with recycled plastic would also make it more costly.
Then there are cellulose based plastics that are at least partially biodegradable. Bamboo could provide cellulose, along with many other plants, like hemp.

[GreenTeam1]

Bamboo is fantastic. In fact it my be the best building material ever donated by mother nature. It is strong like steel, light like aluminum, super green and biodegradable. It is cheap and replenishes itself faster than rabbits! I have seen scaffolding perhaps 10 stories high made from bamboo used all over Asia. On a scal of 1-10 I give Bamboo a 12!