How Sustainable Is Bamboo Plywood: A Brief Study

If you have chosen bamboo plywood for building or renovating your home, you have indeed taken a vital step towards shaping a brighter and greener future for your kids and family. Bamboo is a grass and if you have a bamboo plant in the middle of your garden, you got to cut it all the time as it grows incredibly fast. While that might create a nuisance for you, it’s really an amazing thing about bamboo plants.

In fact, bamboo grows so rapidly that the plant can produce around 20 times more material (for construction) compared to the hardwood trees in any given area of land. The cropping cycle is between four to six years, which means you can cut the plant every four to six years (now compare it against the cropping cycle of hardwood trees that can be cut every 30-60 years). The minimal replanting needs actually makes bamboo, and bamboo plywood, a sustainable material for the construction industry at large. It also reduces soil erosion.

Bamboo is a stronger building material than steel. It is also more renewable than any metallic component and it goes back to the nature once it reaches its end-of-life. The density of bamboo plywood is also considerably high, so much so that the density can easily be compared with some of the hardest hardwoods on this planet. It is a highly water resistant and long-lasting material that has also found popularity as a highly sustainable material. Bamboo flooring and bamboo plywood are completely moisture resistant. It can produce at least 35% more oxygen compared to the deciduous trees.

There are manufacturers who use high-quality glue and low formaldehyde for making the bamboo plywood, and the researchers around the world are in the process of making all-natural and biodegradable glue for making the bamboo products (and all other products that require glue) to be completely natural. If you are considering buying bamboo plywood, it is highly recommended that you go with an ISO certified manufacturer and dealer. There are wholesalers of bamboo plywood manufacturers from China that supply European and North American quality plywood at Asian prices.

For many leading manufacturers of bamboo products, hazardous waste disposal during the manufacturing process is a major concern. They follow the international guidelines for waste disposal and that helps them in reducing their carbon footprints. If you can find such an environmentally conscious bamboo products manufacturer, there is no better option than that.

Why bamboo flooring and bamboo decking products are often dubbed as the most sustainable flooring and building material? Each year, 20% of the bamboo forest is cut and about 80% of the forest is kept intact. This is the biggest proof that bamboo is indeed a very sustainable material. Also, there are Chinese manufacturers and harvesters who don’t use fertiliser, pesticide and irrigation for bamboo harvesting. The process is called sustainable harvesting.

If you are looking for a manufacturer that sources sustainably harvested bamboo for making bamboo plywood, you need to look to the east. There are numerous manufacturers of bamboo flooring and bamboo decking in China and neighbouring countries that preach and practice a sustainable manufacturing model, which is actually very different from that of a European or North American manufacturers. Limited automation, more use of manual labour, using sustainably harvested bamboos is central to the manufacturing process.

Bamboo is a sustainable product also because transporting it around the planet is a more environment friendly process than transporting the wooden building materials that are made from endangered species of rainforest timber. Bamboo products manufacturers in China and in large parts of Asia take a different approach when transporting their bamboo products. Choose a manufacturer that has industry presence for more than a decade or so. Don’t just choose manufacturers based on recommendations or referrals. Instead, choose a manufacturer based on its total years of industry presence, quality certificates and testimonials that it might have received and go through their product literature minutely before taking any decision.