Using Bamboo (Number Seven in a Series)
19 February 2008Technorati Tags: using bamboo,green products
We began this with a discussion on conservation, something we tend to think of as a fairly new concept. And if we speak only of America—the country that routinely felled entire forests to make a farm—it actually is something that is new to us. The East, with its teeming populations, has long had to view this matter differently.
Guan Zhong, who was the Prime Minister of Qi State in China is quoted as saying, “The King who cannot take good care of the mountain, forest, lake and meadow, will not be able to rule the nation,” which is something that could have come from any officer of the Sierra Club in recent years. But what I find particularly interesting about Guan Zhong is that he died in 654 BC!
Another problem China has labored with, in addition to its population, is its relative lack of forests. Only about 16% of the country is forested, about half the percentage that is available to other countries, so China has, of necessity, used other products, one of which is bamboo, for reasons already stated. It is as close to a perfect sustainable resource as we are likely to find. So, over the centuries, China has made heavy use of it.
What makes bamboo particularly valuable to those in the East, though, is not its ubiquity, but its sustainability and its strength. Used properly, it can be put to almost any use, as these photographs readily show:
Of course, the thought of these products, or any products, really, made of spindly bamboo is not, to many Western eyes, a particularly attractive one. If it were to be economically viable in the United States, we would have to be able to transform lowly bamboo into something else altogether.
Joseph
NEXT: “Something Else”
Technorati Tags: bamboo
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