When will we stop being silly?
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Time and again other green media is trying to tell and convince people how environmentally friendly bamboo is as furniture, flooring, etc. But is it really? The short answer is NO!
Bamboo flooring, for instance, is nothing but a laminate, much like wood laminate flooring, and requires lots of energy and glue to produce. Rather to go for solid wood, whether pine or hardwood.
Bamboo furniture too is another one of those cases for unless it is furniture of the kind that would be traditionally made from bamboo by the native folks in Asia it is also made using lots of energy. If traditionally native made then the story is a different one. Remember that bamboo does not make for planks.
Bamboo laptop outer shells, as on some ASUS models, is basically the same as the flooring and far from environmentally friendly and green. The opposite rather. In most cases, even then, the bamboo is just layered onto a plastic shell and, hence, nothing more than greenwashing.
So, why do so many other green publications, whether on the Internet or in print, not tell the bamboo story and truth as the GREEN (LIVING) REVIEW does? A good question, methinks, and one that I will leave the reader to think about themselves.
To sum up: Bamboo can be green whe used as provided by Mother Nature, and that is in tubular form, so to speak. Once again remember that bamboo does not make for planks and boards. Everything else is but greenwash and, and I am prepared to call a spade a spade, nothing but fraud.
© 2010
