Bamboo: What You Need To Know

It's hard not to love products made from bamboo: rapidly renewable, durable and attractive, right? We've posted before about the merits of bamboo and even asked our readers if they think bamboo is green or not, but according to the Boston Globe, it seems like not all bamboo is created equally, or has the same greenness.

The Boston Globe's article, Don't Get Bamboozled warns buyers to not assume all bamboo is grown the same. Practices such as over-harvesting, treatment with non-green chemicals and cross ocean shipping can undercut the green benefits of an otherwise excellent product.

People hear the word bamboo and assume it's green, but it's important to remember to think twice about how the product under consideration is really made. FSC-certification is certainly a start, but not all products that are truly green are necessarily certified. Read more at the Boston Globe.

(Images: Flickr member Telmo32 licensed for use under Creative Commons. Second Image by Bambu)

Comments (2)

I'm glad you've made a post about this. It really angers me to see bamboo textiles being marketed as green, when in fact there is nothing green about them. It's made with the same environmentally unfriendly process as rayon, except that it started out as bamboo instead of cotton.

ok sooo..do we just stick to cotton then?
this is getting to be overwhelming for me, worrying about what is/isn't green all the time..