Bamboo Flooring - A Green Design Choice

Bamboo flooring has emerged over the past decade as THE choice for the environmentally conscious home owner, and is often cited as a ‘green design choice’.

Homeowners who choose to use bamboo floors rather than traditional hardwoods get the look of wood and the knowledge that their floors do not contribute to the depletion of natural resources and hardwood forests.

That’s because technically speaking, bamboo is not a tree. The plant is classified as a grass – a remarkably fast-growing and sturdy grass. Whereas one tree can take thirty to one hundred years to reach harvestable maturity, bamboo can be harvested every three to five years, making it one of the most renewable resources in the world.

It’s hard to think of something that towers ten times our height as a grass – but that’s precisely what bamboo is, and what makes bamboo floors such a great choice for the person who is concerned about the impact our harvesting of resources has on the planet. Unlike a tree, which dies when it is cut down to make planks for floors, bamboo can be harvested again and again from the same plant in the same way that mowing your lawn doesn’t kill the grass plants. Bamboo continues to grow after it is harvested, and can be harvested again in just a few years. That means that the same few acres of ground can provide new ‘wood’ for floors almost continuously without depleting the supply of bamboo plants.

Some critics have made the point that because all bamboo flooring products are imported from the Southeast Pacific Rim, the renewabilty of bamboo is offset by the amount of fossil fuel it takes to transport the product halfway across the world. This would be a more compelling argument if the same could not be said of most other hardwoods imported for flooring. When all other things are equal, bamboo is the far more environmentally responsible choice for flooring in your home.

There’s more to bamboo than it’s environmental benefits, though. Bamboo is warm, moisture resistant and can be milled into flooring planks that rival oak for hardness. Bamboo flooring is tough, resilient and beautiful as well as being good to the planet. Could you ask for more from your floors?



 

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