By now, the oft-repeated stats should be familiar: the built environment contributes nearly 40 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted annually, and at least one-quarter of that is embodied carbon, or the emissions associated with the manufacture of products used to make buildings and with the construction process. So how can we continue to build while minimizing these impacts? One answer is to use bio-based materials. And one such material—with untapped potential—is bamboo. It is abundant, has a rapid growth cycle, and is strong, sometimes characterized as vegetable steel.
What exactly is bamboo? Bamboo is often thought of as wood, but the plants are not trees. Instead, they are part of the grass family. More than 1,600 species exist, with most tending to thrive in humid climates close to the equator. These are divided into herbaceous types, which are slender-stalked and grow as understories, and the larger-diameter “woody” varieties more suitable for construction. Some have “running” root systems, which can send up new shoots as far as 100 feet from an existing culm (or stem), while others clump, growing new culms close to the base of an existing one.
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