Is this the wonder material we should all be using?
I totally get that bamboo is fast growing, easy to farm and requires no pesticide or chemicals to manage its harvesting. It captures carbon - quickly - and can be made into versatile and strong boards and sheets from which the clever people can make furniture. So should we stop with the birch ply thing and go bamboo? As always, it’s not that simple. I asked my good friend The Professor at UCL who explained that the most important factors are the life cycle of the wood, where it is planted and the energy required to process and transport. Beech, birch or bamboo, all are capturing and retaining carbon until they are incinerated or decay in landfill. So the questions are where is comes from, how is it made and what happens when our bamboo furniture is no longer wanted? Has it been designed for a second, third and fourth life? Does the consumer have an appetite for this material beyond a fad? if an oak chair is well crafted in the UK from a European forest and valued by the owner for longer than a bamboo alternative is that a better option? No simple answers but the questions need to be asked.