Filed under: Your Home, Design, etc, News & Trends, Furniture
From shoots to seats. Photos: timcammett00, Corbis RF; ptkphoto, Corbis RF.
Eco-lingo is being tossed around left and right these days. We're demystifying common terms to help you figure out which words are the real deal... and which are just green jargon.
Today's word: Bamboo
Definition: Yes, bamboo is a major food source for adorable pandas, but that's not all the good it does. We've heard plenty of buzz about bamboo being a great resource for flooring and furniture materials -- after all, it's the fastest-growing woody plant on Earth, growing to harvest-able size in only three years (40 times quicker than oak's maturity process). It also has the benefit of releasing 35% more oxygen into the air than most trees.
While bamboo itself is a terrific resource, in order for it to become a usable material, it goes through less noble processes: To turn natural bamboo into flooring, many manufacturers use energy-intensive methods and some even use formaldehyde. And to make bamboo fabric, the most common process involves strong chemicals that aren't healthy for the people working with them, or the environment.
But not all bamboo is created equal -- or equally green. Green Daily gives the scoop on sniffing out the most eco-friendly bamboo for your money (hint: look for farmed, not wild, bamboo). And Treehugger played environmental watchdog on this one, pointing out that bamboo isn't as green as it could be thanks to enterprising growers who are clearcutting natural forests to make way for more bamboo, and the chemicals they use to speed up the already quick growth.
One way to make sure you're not being bamboo-zled (sorry! couldn't help it), is to look for bamboo products that have third-party certification, like Smith & Fong's Plyboo, which comes from bamboo that's grown with no irrigation or chemicals and is harvested responsibly. It's even the first non-wood product to be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a not for profit group committed to protecting the world's forests.
Verdict: The Real Deal. But don't buy bamboo blindly! Keep an eye out for greenwashing.