Everything You Wanted to Know About Bamboo

You’ve seen bamboo chopping boards, bamboo furniture, sheets, and so much more. Naturally, you have questions. Why is bamboo considered a sustainable product and how does it help the earth? We have the deets when it comes to learning everything you ever wanted to know about bamboo, and we’re going to share them with you! Keep reading to find out more.  

Where Does Bamboo Come From?

Bamboo is considered the fastest growing plant on earth, making it a highly sustainable resource that is easily renewable compared to regular wood, which takes quite some time to grow. Bamboo is also less porous than wood, which makes it very durable. It doesn’t break or splinter easily, and Grade A bamboo is safe for food use, which is why you will often find that authentic chopsticks are made from it.  

There are some species of bamboo that can grow an entire meter in 24 hours! To top it off, bamboo plants are very difficult to destroy, they are hardy and aren’t affected by many pests or diseases. China has used bamboo for thousands of years to build, make clothing, and even make musical instruments. The bamboo that is used to create sustainable products at Boobam is a premium quality Grade-A bamboo from the Jiangxi Province of China.  

Why is Bamboo a Sustainable Product?

Bamboo is considered a sustainable product because it can basically grow almost as fast as we are able to harvest and produce products with it. It is a truly miraculous plant. Bamboo plants have been used for a wide variety of products that we use in our everyday lives. This includes building materials, and due to its flexibility is often used in bridge building, housing, scaffolding, and even modern flooring. Bamboo was used before paper was invented, strips of these amazing plants were used as a writing material and a way to make books. You may even find books today that have bamboo bindings!  

Bamboo can be made into several different kinds of fabric, including the popular sheets that are insanely soft. The plants are crushed, broken down with natural enzymes, and then the fibers get combed out to be spun into a yarn. Bamboo shoots are also edible, and are often used in traditional Japanese, Chinese, and Indonesian cooking.  

Creating Products with Bamboo

Bamboo only takes about 6 months to grow to its complete height. A pole of bamboo is considered “mature” and ready for harvest when it is about 3 years old. Each bamboo plant that is a year old will produce a new “shoot” each year. If you wait the 3 years to harvest bamboo, then it has already replaced itself three times over.  Bamboo for building requires that you wait 3 years before harvest; bamboo for other products is able to be harvested earlier.  This is why we say that it grows almost faster than we can harvest it and use it.  

This is why harvesting bamboo is not the same as killing trees – the amount we harvest is never more than is being produced. At Boobam, we use 100% Grade-A bamboo to create utensils that you can simply throw away after using them. What makes bamboo utensils even better is that they are fully compostable. This means that you can toss them in your compost bin or bury them in your backyard, and they’ll decompose within a few weeks’ time. Plastic, on the other hand, could take hundreds of years to decompose — if ever! Can you imagine how many forks, spoons, and knives we can create out of a single pole of bamboo?