READ MORE ABOUT:
Steve Thomas is the host of Planet Green's Renovation Nation, a program that focuses on making green renovations to homes across the country. In his regular column on PlanetGreen.com, Steve goes behind the scenes of the show and offers additional tips and insight on green renovation.
What's amazing about bamboo is that it will quickly grow to full maturity, so it is harvestable in three or four years. The new stalk begins growing immediately, so they'll shoot up about sixty feet in the course of a year. The bamboo then spends the next three years getting thicker and stronger.
So you realize the kind of biomass that bamboo can produce very quickly. You start to think that this is a game changer when it comes to fiber production. Most of our building materials come from fast-growing trees that are farmed in the southeast: Georgia, North Carolina or even in northern forests like Maine.
The wood fiber from these farmed trees is chipped up and glued into various engineered components. The fibers are utilized as plywood or TimberStrand beams or what have you. They don't even use the whole tree, only the fiber.
If you think of bamboo in terms of fiber production, then bamboo offers a much more rapid way to produce fibers and sequester carbon.
When you think in terms of what's going to be required for the production of new housing stock as we move from a 6 billion person world to a 9 billion person world, we definitely have to look at new sources of fiber that are non-destructive to the biosphere.
Bamboo is one of them. It's a game changer, because it is rapidly growing, and it removes carbon from the atmosphere.
Don't miss the Habitat Goes Green Episode of Renovation Nation.
More on Bamboo
Pick the Best Flooring for Air Quality
Green Glossary: Bamboo Bikes
Why Buy and Use Bamboo Products?
-
- {}
