Bamboo Steps Up

An ancient plant becomes a new sensation

  • By Cathie Gandel
  • Smithsonian.com, March 21, 2008, Subscribe
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A bamboo grove
Bamboo’s net-like root system prevents erosion on steep surfaces and makes a bamboo grove a safe haven in an earthquake. (iStockphoto)

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A bamboo cargo bike made in Ghana by California bike builder Craig Calfee and Ghanaians.

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When producer Lesley Chilcott accepted the Oscar in 2007 for best documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," it was perhaps fitting that she was wearing a dress made from bamboo. Yes, bamboo.

"Bamboo is not what we in the United States have imagined it to be," says Jackie Heinricher, owner of Boo-Shoot Gardens, a nursery in Mount Vernon, 60 miles north of Seattle. In 1880 Thomas Edison may have used a carbonized bamboo filament in the first light bulb—still burning in the Smithsonian—but for years bamboo was denigrated as the "poor man's timber," relegated to cheap lawn furniture and chintzy restaurant décor.

Today, influenced by its availability, low cost, versatility and eco-friendly credentials, the Western world is taking a fresh look at bamboo. You might say that bamboo has had a career change. "It has become the material of choice for fashions, flooring, skateboards, bicycles and buildings."

Not bad accomplishments for grass. Because that's what bamboo is: giant grass, a member of the Poaceae family. With over 1,000 species, bamboo ranges from feathery ground covers to tall timbers over 100 feet. It has two root systems. Runners stretch exuberantly-- and make the home gardener crazy. Clumpers spread more slowly. It grows in temperate and tropical climates, and can be found at sea level and on mountaintops 13,000 feet high. Bamboo is self-sustaining. Its extensive root system sends up new shoots annually, so it doesn't need to be replanted.

Bamboo is also the fastest growing plant on the planet. (Giant kelp comes in second.) One waist-high bamboo plant grew 42 inches in 24 hours. So instead of taking centuries to mature, like hardwood trees, bamboo reaches a useful height in three to five years. Bamboo can also be harvested selectively and manually, without leaving denuded swathes of land behind. (Most of the exported bamboo comes from forests in China with India a distant second.)

Its short growth cycle and sustainability are why architects and environmentalists are looking at bamboo as a replacement for timber. "Bamboo has the same utility as hardwood," says Daniel Smith, president of San Francisco-based Smith & Fong Plyboo, producers of bamboo flooring, plywood and paneling, "and costs about the same as grade A red oak." Some are using bamboo for more than flooring. Colombian architect Simon Velez recently created the largest bamboo structure ever built: the Nomadic Museum in Mexico City.

Bamboo's environmental report card keeps getting A's. It can be grown without chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Its net-like root system prevents erosion on steep surfaces and makes a bamboo grove a safe haven in an earthquake. It can detoxify wastewater, thanks to its high nitrogen consumption. It sequesters four times as much carbon as hardwood trees, and generates up to 35 percent more oxygen.

All these "green" qualities are causing people to jump on the bamboo bandwagon, but there are some caveats. While bamboo itself may be "green," many of the methods used to take the raw material from grove to marketplace are not. Cloth from bamboo is soft as silk and more absorbent than cotton, but the fibers are made in a rayon-like process that uses chemicals and solvents. Formaldehyde is used in the making of plywood. "People say they want bamboo flooring in their whole house," says Nancy Moore Bess, Arts & Crafts Coordinator of the American Bamboo Society and herself an artist who works with bamboo. "Not all bamboo floors are the same. Consumers should check that the product is made responsibly." And shipping the raw material from Asia to the U.S. adds to global warming.


When producer Lesley Chilcott accepted the Oscar in 2007 for best documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," it was perhaps fitting that she was wearing a dress made from bamboo. Yes, bamboo.

"Bamboo is not what we in the United States have imagined it to be," says Jackie Heinricher, owner of Boo-Shoot Gardens, a nursery in Mount Vernon, 60 miles north of Seattle. In 1880 Thomas Edison may have used a carbonized bamboo filament in the first light bulb—still burning in the Smithsonian—but for years bamboo was denigrated as the "poor man's timber," relegated to cheap lawn furniture and chintzy restaurant décor.

Today, influenced by its availability, low cost, versatility and eco-friendly credentials, the Western world is taking a fresh look at bamboo. You might say that bamboo has had a career change. "It has become the material of choice for fashions, flooring, skateboards, bicycles and buildings."

Not bad accomplishments for grass. Because that's what bamboo is: giant grass, a member of the Poaceae family. With over 1,000 species, bamboo ranges from feathery ground covers to tall timbers over 100 feet. It has two root systems. Runners stretch exuberantly-- and make the home gardener crazy. Clumpers spread more slowly. It grows in temperate and tropical climates, and can be found at sea level and on mountaintops 13,000 feet high. Bamboo is self-sustaining. Its extensive root system sends up new shoots annually, so it doesn't need to be replanted.

Bamboo is also the fastest growing plant on the planet. (Giant kelp comes in second.) One waist-high bamboo plant grew 42 inches in 24 hours. So instead of taking centuries to mature, like hardwood trees, bamboo reaches a useful height in three to five years. Bamboo can also be harvested selectively and manually, without leaving denuded swathes of land behind. (Most of the exported bamboo comes from forests in China with India a distant second.)

Its short growth cycle and sustainability are why architects and environmentalists are looking at bamboo as a replacement for timber. "Bamboo has the same utility as hardwood," says Daniel Smith, president of San Francisco-based Smith & Fong Plyboo, producers of bamboo flooring, plywood and paneling, "and costs about the same as grade A red oak." Some are using bamboo for more than flooring. Colombian architect Simon Velez recently created the largest bamboo structure ever built: the Nomadic Museum in Mexico City.

Bamboo's environmental report card keeps getting A's. It can be grown without chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Its net-like root system prevents erosion on steep surfaces and makes a bamboo grove a safe haven in an earthquake. It can detoxify wastewater, thanks to its high nitrogen consumption. It sequesters four times as much carbon as hardwood trees, and generates up to 35 percent more oxygen.

All these "green" qualities are causing people to jump on the bamboo bandwagon, but there are some caveats. While bamboo itself may be "green," many of the methods used to take the raw material from grove to marketplace are not. Cloth from bamboo is soft as silk and more absorbent than cotton, but the fibers are made in a rayon-like process that uses chemicals and solvents. Formaldehyde is used in the making of plywood. "People say they want bamboo flooring in their whole house," says Nancy Moore Bess, Arts & Crafts Coordinator of the American Bamboo Society and herself an artist who works with bamboo. "Not all bamboo floors are the same. Consumers should check that the product is made responsibly." And shipping the raw material from Asia to the U.S. adds to global warming.

"But we don't have to do that," says Boo-Shoots' Heinricher. "We could actually be farming it ourselves." Propagation from seed is not viable because bamboo flowers only once every 60 to 100 years. For eight years, Heinricher and her partner, Randy Burr, have been perfecting a method of tissue culture that produces reliable plants in large quantities. It takes about a month for the tiny sliver of bamboo placed in a nutrient soup to become dozens of plants. To date her clients have been nurseries but "we're getting some interest from Asia," she says.

Given that bamboo is native to every continent except Europe and Antarctica, groups like the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) are looking for ways to use bamboo to create sustainable economies on a local level. Californian bike-builder Craig Calfee has already started a project. Last year Calfee, with support from the Earth Institute at Columbia University, initiated the Bamboo Bike Project. In March he returned from a second visit to Ghana where he helped Ghanaians build the first fully functional bamboo bike made in Africa by Africans. The hope is that eventually villagers will be able to sell these bikes to each other and even to tourists. "People want some economic benefit from bamboo so they won't have to illegally cut bigger trees to sell to the lumber market, Calfee says. Villagers were also impressed with the strength of the bike: a rider was able to deliver two 110 pound bags of cement to a man building a house.

"Bamboo is the most egalitarian crop around," says Adam Turtle, co-owner of Tennessee-based Earth Advocates Research Farm. Asian cultures have incorporated bamboo into their daily lives for millennia. "Most traditional bamboo working communities have a huge range of bamboo products, from the knife to cut a baby's umbilical cord, to the stretcher that carries him when he passes on," says Rebecca Reubens, coordinator of INBAR's Global Marketing Initiative.

Will bamboo become such an integral part of Western culture? "Bamboo is not a trend; it is here to stay," says Plyboo's Smith. "It's going to continue to affect every aspect of a wide range of people's lives."


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Comments (21)

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This article and the above comments/information may have answered some of my most pressing questions, like: (a) how to create a lush garden (b) in a concrete yard (c) using my washing machine runoff for irrigation! THANK YOU - ALL OF YOU!

Posted by Shir-El on May 8,2009 | 10:29 AM

We have a 3 to 5 acre area on our farm and would like to grow bamboo. I have heard of all the purposes it has and think it would be a great green product. Would it provide at least a part time income? We live in Oklahoma.

Posted by kathy truelove on September 4,2008 | 09:45 PM

Yeah, Bamboo's really great in many, many ways and that's why we're using it on our launch collection of socks, in 3 unique designs. However, the process of making Bamboo can and must be improved...and we're committed to helping do just that! But for now, we should all enjoy the odor free comfort and the silky green thermo control of Bamboo socks! Rich : )

Posted by Rich of Socks for Happy People on August 22,2008 | 01:08 PM

Household Wares is a cooperation persisting in researching, designing, and manufacturing all kinds of bamboo products for better life.Please check: www.household-wares.com.

Posted by Amy Zhou on July 11,2008 | 03:26 AM

There is an American Bamboo Society, which would probably be able to answer many of the questions asked within these postings. http://www.americanbamboo.org/

Posted by Ginna Greenbaum on April 25,2008 | 09:08 PM

this bamboo kind of thing is very interesting to me thats mostly all about it!

Posted by katelyn on April 13,2008 | 09:10 AM

I have a friend in NC who has been tearing her hair out for years because the bamboo that keeps coming back in her yard is just the most tenacious of weeds to her. Is there any market for her "cash crop" that I can forward to her? She is unable to work and sure could use the income. Thanks for the interesting and informative article!

Posted by Laurie on April 4,2008 | 08:48 AM

Great article! Just like everything printed in Smithsonian! It's great to know that we can save our trees and protect the environment, and still have needed lumber. For now, I have been growing some for its lovely, graceful foliage, IN A POT.

Posted by mary ann rambeau on March 31,2008 | 06:21 PM

There are many mis conceptions about bamboo. I thought this article addresses some of them very well. Bamboo is a very hardy plant and if you plant it outside, it should be in a pot or it will eventually become your yard. I sell Bamboo flooring for commercial and residential use, and it is as hard as red oak, and cheaper. The man whose son had a formaldehide smell was due to his poor shopping and shoddy research. There are many brabds of Bamboo that are now made without it at all. The newer factories in China are capturing the chemicals instead of dupmping them into a river. These bamboo boards look just like wood, install like wood, and with a standard 7 layers of polyurethane on better Bamboo, it will wear better than most wood floors. It doesn't react to moisture the way that wood does, making it ideal for a lower level, or basement. Do your own research people...... Have a Green Day !

Posted by Randy O on March 30,2008 | 10:33 AM

S.S.Smith's comment is so relevant,and succinctly states why bamboo and native wood are not really comparable. Bamboo is a versatile & beautiful material, and sure grows quickly, but it's not" greener " than oak, or maple, etc., when it is highly processed into substitute products.

Posted by Paul Daley on March 30,2008 | 09:07 AM

The article mention the "green" qualities of bamboo in that i"it can detoxify wastewater, thanks to its high nitrogen consumption. It sequesters four times as much carbon as hardwood trees, and generates up to 35 percent more oxygen" Wouldn't these qualities of Bamboo be useful along riverbanks or estuaries where pollution is affecting water quality? Even though it is a non-native species, it benefits to the environment offsets the non-native aspect. Even with Global Warming, many ecosystems are going to experience a disruption as non-native species begin to colonize the new ecological niches that the changing climate has created.

Posted by Jerry M. Weikle on March 29,2008 | 03:49 PM

Who knows where you'll find bamboo. Recently i made a pair of socks for my sister and was very surprised to find the yarn was a combination of wool and bamboo!! she says the socks are warm and comfortable.

Posted by marie duggan on March 29,2008 | 08:36 AM

I have linnen made of bamboo. I LOVE it! It is SO soft and silky. Absolutely fantastic. Highly recommend

Posted by Halena on March 28,2008 | 11:29 PM

I lived in Florida for 20 years and I had a clump of bamboo in my front yard And as one lady mentioned mowing kept it confined. I now live in Arkansas and the weather here is mild. Would bamboo survive here and if so where could I get a start?

Posted by Clinton Oak on March 28,2008 | 08:39 PM



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