Bamboo Flooring Environmentally Friendly to the Forrest
Bamboo flooring environmentally friendly – not only to the forest but also to animal such as the panda. Most of us regardless of where we live appreciate our environment.
Surfing the Internet, visiting homes and flooring stores one can become amazed at the large variety of floors that are available. Soft wood, hardwood, exotic wood and bamboo represent a few of our many floor types.
Carpet, linoleum, sheet vinyl, laminate, ceramic and stone are a few more of the floors we enjoy.
Of all of these floors a bamboo flooring environmentally friendly floor is one of the greenest floors available.
Environmental Considerations
As humans we may argue over the spotted owl, endangered plants, endangered bugs and rodents. We can face oil spills at sea and pipeline breaks at land, none of which are welcome to any of us. As necessary as mining may be, some of our most beautiful lands have been scarred by strip mining.
Yes, these are all real concerns and all of us need to take them into consideration. Me must weigh in our own minds how we truly feel about the products we choose to use. Do we want an exotic hardwood made from a rare, endangered tree or a environmentally friendly bamboo flooring product?
Environmentally Friendly Effects on the Panda
When we consider bamboo flooring and its effect on the environment it is important that we consider its effect on the giant panda.
- A panda must feed 12 to 16 hours a day, consuming 22 – 40 pounds of bamboo.
- When eating fresh shoots, each panda will consume about 84 pounds of bamboo shoots in a day.
- It’s estimated that their are only 700 – 1500 giant pandas that exist in the wild.
- The best-known endangered animal, probably the Giant Panda.
- The Panda competes with the farmers.
- Poachers kill Panda’s.
- Bamboo also used for other commodities. Food, housing, furniture, musical instruments, toys, tools, and just about anything else you can imagine.
- We are taking more bamboo away from the Panda to make floor covering, or are we?
Environmental Concerns
In Oregon we have environmentalist sitting at the top of trees in an attempt to keep them from being cut down. Some trees sitters are there for months and even a year or longer. Competitive priced wood is no longer available in the United States for housing, flooring, and furniture and just about everything else.
We need oil and lots of it for the day-to-day operation of our automobiles, houses, factories and the manufacturing of a multitude of products including floor covering.
Most carpet, laminate and resilient is composed of oil-based products at least in part. Environmental concerns have made us dependent on foreign oil, from countries that have less stringent environmental regulations.
Even those of us in the floor covering industry want a clean environment. We may not agree with sitting in a tree or blocking the construction of a pipeline. When at the supermarket spending our hard earned cash, we still have to think fast when asked, paper or plastic? Do I want to cut a tree today or build a pipeline?
Is Bamboo Flooring Environmentally Friendly the Answer?
In China you do not have people sitting atop the bamboo canes. I imagine some would if they thought they could. Kidding aside, all of us need to be concerned with out environment and I truly believe those of us in the floor covering industry do care. Most all of us want to see the responsible use of our natural resources. We want the beauty of our country and our world to be here for future generations to enjoy.
Are we Taking the Panda’s Food?
So if less than a thousand Panda Bears survive in the wild, and rely on bamboo for their source of food, are bamboo floors the answer?
Most bamboo flooring sold in North America is produced in the southern Chinese province of Hunan. Known as “the bamboo sea” for its extensive bamboo forests.
The government owns the forest and individuals or companies can obtain contracts to harvest from them. Contrary to the concerns of many, the harvesting in these forests are not a threat to Pandas’ as they live at much higher elevations and eat a different species of bamboo.
The habitat today of the giant panda is six small areas located in inland China. This habitat is suitable for the 15 or so bamboo varieties on which the panda survives. The area is a cold, damp coniferous forest with elevations that range from 4,000 to 11,000 feet.
More than 1,000 species of bamboo are found worldwide. The Moso species (phyllostachys pubescens) is a popular species for flooring. The Moso grows to about fifty feet in height and two feet in circumference. Moso is primarily found in the low mountain areas of Zhejiang province (It is in the Temperate Zone about 30 degrees North latitude). The temperatures in this area range from below freezing in the winter to over 100 F in the summer.
Mao Zhu (hairy bamboo) is another popular bamboo used for flooring. It is one of the hundreds of bamboo species not consumed by panda.
With its rapid growth cycle and abundance, bamboo floors really do appear to be environmental friendly.