Bamboo is one of nature’s greatest gifts to mankind. It has been utilized for thousands of years by cultures around the globe, most notably in Asia and South America.

Recently, bamboo has realized worldwide popularity as a fashionable, affordable, and renewable alternative to standard wood products. The bamboo revolution has begun, and will continue to grow, as the front-runner of all rapidly renewable products.

Bamboo Renewability

Bamboo is a grass, and the fastest growing wood like substance on the planet. Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens), the variety most commonly used in flooring and building materials, grows to a height of 50-60 feet in only eighteen months. Moso bamboo reaches maturity and can be harvested after four to six years of growth. Compare this to the 30-60 years for any comparable wood species, and it is easy to see the advantages of bamboo. No replanting is necessary, as bamboo is regenerated through its rhizomes. Bamboo offers incredible erosion control due to this rapid regeneration.

Bamboo is a critical element in the balance of oxygen / carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Bamboo is the fastest growing canopy for the re-greening of degraded areas and generates 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees.

Bamboo may hold the answer to the future re-vegetation of the earth in vast areas of Brazil and other deforested regions around the world. In modern urban centers the leaf / people ratio is the lowest ever in history, and it may someday be sensibly restored by planting bamboo.

Bamboo Strength

Bamboo is one of the strongest building materials available. Bamboo’s tensile strength is 28,000 per square inch versus 23,000 for steel. While bamboo is incredibly strong, it is also flexible and lightweight, which makes it an essential structural material in earthquake architecture. In Limon, Costa Rica, only the bamboo houses from the National Bamboo Project stood after their violent earthquake in 1992.

Sustainable Business

Bamboo Revolution believes purchasing based on long lasting quality, the environmental effects of the production, and what contributions the company offers the community, local or worldwide, is the first step in tipping the scales towards a sustainable society. If each of us — as suppliers, manufacturers, and consumers — demands products and companies to offer more than the cheapest, easiest solution, they will be forced to respond to their customers’ demands.

Bamboo Revolution takes pride providing a gateway to the possibilities of bamboo and its role in responsible, sustainable practices. 

Bamboo & Sustainability Facts

• Bamboo is a grass, and the fastest growing wood like substance on the planet. Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys pubescens), the variety used in Bamboo Revolution products, grows to a height of 50-60 feet in only eighteen months.
• Moso bamboo generates 35% more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees.
• Moso bamboo reaches maturity and can be harvested after five to seven years of growth.
• Because Moso bamboo is harvested after five years, no more than 20% of the grove is harvested in any single year, preserving the forest canopy.
• No heavy machinery is used in harvesting, and most is done by hand.
• No replanting is necessary, as bamboo is regenerated through its rhizomes. No irrigation or pesticides are needed to spur its growth.
• Bamboo’s tensile strength is 28,000 per square inch versus 23,000 for steel.

Source: International Network for Bamboo and Rattan

Working With Bamboo