Renewable bamboo The environmentally friendly alternative
For those looking for a true green choice as a flooring option, mills are answering the call by supplying one of the most viable, environmentally friendly stories they have in their arsenal: bamboo. With the "nature moving indoors" trend still going strong, combined with emphasis on anything green, getting the story out about what bamboo has to offer has become priority number one with a growing number of manufacturers. "Bamboo is rapidly renewable," said Gary Keeble Jr., marketing manager for U.S. Floors. "Bamboo suitable for flooring matures in five-and-a-half to six years. When harvested, multiple plant stands generate from the stalk. Woods with comparable hardness to bamboo reach maturity in 50 to 150 years. "We try and educate retail salespeople through product knowledge sessions with our reps, literature and merchandising. The Internet is important to green products such as bamboo. Green consumers are typically more Internet savvy and more apt to research purchases via the Web. However, the typical end user who is not "activist" green, will have to rely much more heavily on the retail salesperson for education on bamboo." Teragren's bamboo flooring "is a beautiful, durable and rapidly renewable resource that meets the growing demand for environmentally friendly products," said Ann Knight, executive vice president/marketing director. "Unlike hardwood trees requiring more than 60 years to mature, bamboo is a grass growing up to 2 feet daily that is renewably harvested over and over from the same plant. Moso bamboo-which is the best species for flooring such as our Optimum 5.5 Moso-harvested sooner than maturity can result in flooring products as soft as pine or fir and damage to the plant itself." Bamboo also relieves pressure on degraded forests, she added, because it releases 35% more oxygen than a comparable cluster of trees. 'those benefits extend to bamboo products in residential and commercial settings-Teragren's bamboo flooring products can last for many generations and "lock up" that carbon over the life of the products." Not all equal While the demand for eco-friendly products, including bamboo flooring, continues to grow, salespeople can educate their customers by underscoring that not all bamboo flooring is created equal. "In order to ensure a beautiful, durable and renewable product," Knight commented, "it's important to know where, and especially when, the bamboo was harvested, what species were used, how hard it is on the Janka ball scale, adhesive formaldehyde off-gassing ratings, and whether it is coming from a reputable manufacturer and is truly environmentally friendly." According to Robert Pea.....
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