Bamboo Universe
Using bamboo instead of wood is a responsible act. With BambooTouch®, you are contributing to the fight against deforestation and helping to preserve our planet.
Bamboo universe
“One can eat a meal without meat, but cannot live without bamboo”, claims Su Dongpo, a Chinese painter and poet of the Song Dynasty.
50% of the planet’s woods and forests have disappeared over the last 100 years, due to a devastating approach to forestry. Despite the introduction of controls in some countries, forests continue to disappear, at a rate of 50,000km² every year – more than the surface area of Belgium! Deforestation is responsible for 20% of CO2 emissions.
Bamboo is a woody grass that absorbs 30% more CO² than a deciduous tree, corresponding to 12 tonnes of CO²/year/person. So growing bamboo helps dramatically reduce the greenhouse effect.
Giant bamboo, also known as Moso (‘Phyllostachys Pubescens’), is an inexhaustible natural resource. It is the only rapidly renewable alternative to combat worldwide deforestation. This naturally ecological material grows very fast and does not need to be replanted, quickly becoming harder than most woods.
Bamboo can grow by 30 to 50cm a day, and once it gets to adulthood, reaches heights of between 15 and 30 metres, with a circumference of up to 35cm. After 5 or 6 years, giant moso bamboo reaches maturity and stops growing, compared to between 50 and 70 years for oak.
Thanks to its extraordinary physical characteristics, giant bamboo is superior to wood and structural steel in many ways including hardness, longevity, stability and elasticity. Used for millennia in Asia, they refer to it as ‘steel grass’ there.
Bamboo
and pandas
Bamboo is naturally associated with pandas, it being their only food. However, the use of giant moso or ‘Phyllostachys Pubescens’ in no way threatens the existence of the protected animals, as they feed on different varieties of bamboo that grow lower down, and are therefore more accessible to them. As well as this, pandas live a long way away from where giant bamboo is grown and used.
Everything you want to do with wood, you can do with bamboo!
Learn more about bamboo
- In China, some bamboo suspension bridges have a clear span of 40m.
- Bamboo is the only plant that survived in the epicentre of the atomic explosion in Hiroshima
- The incandescent filament in the first electric light bulb created by Edison was made out of bamboo
- Clothes and fabrics are made from bamboo: T-shirts, polo-shirts, cardigans, bath towels….
- The first needle for the Alexander Graham Bell’s record player was made of bamboo
- Bamboo that is broken down into pieces can be used to feed animals and fish
- There are decorated bamboo bowls that are over 1,500 years old
- The mechanical resistance of bamboo is greater than that of steel in some ways
- Certain varieties of bamboo can reach a height of 24m and a diameter of 60cm in 2 months
- Other species of bamboo grow 1 metre in 24 hours
- Bamboo forms the basis for many food products in Asia
- Wine, beer and brandy can be made from bamboo
- Bamboo is used as a medicine to treat poor circulation, asthma, kidney problems and gastritis
- Bamboo is used to manufacture desalination filters and poison for arrowheads
- Bamboo canes can be used for scaffolding for buildings
- Bamboo roots can stretch over 200km
- 5.2 million pairs of bamboo chopsticks are used to eat every day
- The destruction of rainforests is nothing to do with bamboo
- In Vietnam, bamboo is used to make toothpaste
- Bamboo is the raw material used to make lots of musical instruments in Asia
- Bamboo has successfully been converted into engine fuel
- In Australia, some surfboards are made from bamboo covered in a layer of epoxy
- Bicycles and skis are now being produced using bamboo