Is Bamboo a Tree?
Bamboo is a grass, it is the fastest growing plant on Earth. It grows one third faster than the fastest growing tree. Some species grow as much as four feet a day.

How long does it normally take to grow?
It takes only 3-5 years before it can be harvested for the first time, versus 10-50 years for most softwoods and hardwoods. Thanks to its rapid growth, the yield (weight per acreage and year) is up to 25 times higher than that of timber.

Is bamboo eco-friendly?
Bamboo can also be harvested and replenished with virtually no impact to the environment. Every year it can be selectively harvested and is capable of regeneration without needing to be replanted.

What makes using bamboo better than trees?
With a 10-30% annual increase in biomass versus 2-5% for trees, bamboo creates greater yields of raw material for use. One bamboo clump can produce 200 poles in the five years it takes one tree to reach maturity. Bamboo is definitely a viable replacement for wood.

What is bamboo used for?
Bamboo is a renewable resource for agroforestry production. It is used to produce flooring, wall paneling, pulp for paper, fencing, briquettes for fuel, raw material for housing, and more. In Costa Rica, 1000 bamboo houses are built annually with material coming from the same 150 acre bamboo plantation.

Is bamboo strong enough?
Bamboo is one of the strongest building materials in the world, it has twice the compression strength of concrete and roughly the same strength-to-weight ratio of steel. It withstands up to 52,000 pounds of pressure psi.

What kind of bamboo is used to build with?
Bamboo Living Homes are made with a special “Timber” bamboo species. The poles used in the houses are 3 ½ inches in diameter and the wall of the bamboo pole is ¾ inch in thickness. The hollow tube shape gives a strength factor of 1.9 times more than an equivalent solid wood beam.

How do bamboo homes hold up against hurricanes?
The exceptionally strong and flexible poles are able to withstand the extreme forces imposed on a house during hurricanes and earthquakes. Bamboo Living Homes withstood 3 hurricanes with winds at 173m.p.h. in the Cook Islands in Polynesia in 2005. Meanwhile, most of the wood frame houses on the island were damaged beyond repair.

Can bamboo wisthstand earthquakes?
All of the twenty bamboo houses built for the National Bamboo Foundation survived a 7.5 Richter scale earthquake in Costa Rica in April 1991. An earthquake in Colombia in January 1999 also destroyed 75 percent of the buildings in the region, however, the bamboo structures survived uniformly unscathed.

How does bamboo help with Global Warming?
Bamboo offers the quickest way to remove the vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Each acre of bamboo isolates up to 40 tons of CO2. It eats carbon dioxide!

The bamboo plant takes CO2 from the atmosphere and turns it into sugars, through the process of photosynthesis, then transforms these sugars into the compounds that make up bamboo fiber. The CO2 from the atmosphere is thus locked up in the bamboo fiber itself. The bamboo fiber is then used to construct green buildings, leaving the carbon within it sequestered for the entire lifetime of the building.

Bamboo homes are a carbon capture and storage system, a 1,000 sq. ft. green home built by Bamboo Living has approximately 15 tons of carbon dioxide locked up (sequestered) within its fibers.

What are other benefits of growing bamboo?
Bamboo is a natural control barrier. Because of its wide spread root system and large canopy it greatly reduces rain run-off, prevents massive soil erosion and doubles the size of watersheds.
Bamboo also helps mitigate water pollution, due to its high nitrogen consumption, making it the perfect solution for excess nutrient uptake of waste water from manufacturing, intensive livestock farming, and sewage treatment facilities.
Unlike most trees, proper harvesting does not kill the bamboo plant so topsoil is held in place. Additionally, because of its litter on the dense forest floor it actually feeds the topsoil over time. This will provide healthy agricultural lands for other crops for generations to come.

Does bamboo have any medicinal purposes?
Current research points to bamboo’s potential in a number of medical uses. Secretion from bamboo is used internally to treat asthma, coughs, and can be used as an aphrodisiac. Ingredients from the root help treat kidney disease. Roots and leaves have also been used to treat venereal disease and cancer. Sap is said to reduce fever, and ash will cure prickly heat.

Benjamin is an environmental activist and green living supporter. You can learn more about Green Homes by visiting http://www.bambooliving.com