For anyone trying to conserve energy and reduce their impact on the environment, bamboo should be top of the list as a source of renewable material. With many different types of businesses now offering environmentally friendly bamboo household products, there is a huge choice available to improve your ecological impact even more, with some added health benefits tied in as well.
The attraction to bamboo is that it grows incredibly fast, up to 3 or 4 feet per day, and in the process releases up 35% more oxygen than trees of a similar size. Maturity is achieved within 7 years, rather 30 years for other types of trees, which results in a 20 times larger timber yield to other species given the same area. Here are some ideas and tips that you can use to start replacing household items by sourcing them made of bamboo.
Tissues And Toilette Paper
Some of the household items that require the most amounts of trees are tissues and toilette paper. It is something we all have to use even and when sourced from recycled paper it adds strain to the environment. Bamboo is ideal for turning into paper mulch which is then transformed into various forms of tissues and stationary. And because of the far lower environmental impact of sustainable bamboo cultivation your impact on the environment is hugely reduced.
Fabrics For Bed Sheets
One area that has only relatively recently become popular with bamboo materials is fabrics and textiles. For many people these are probably the most unusual environmentally friendly bamboo products, as you would not associate clothing and bed sheets with this type of wooden source materials. However, bamboo towels, clothes and sheets are now quite common and provide health benefits as their manufacturing processes are not heavily reliant on chemicals.
Flooring
Wood flooring is very popular in many homes and has a substantially lower environmental impact than carpets, when the wood is sourced from sustainable cultivation. Because bamboo is a hard wood with very attractive graining it is ideal for the use in construction and interior design.
Door And Window Frames
In new homes or during major refurbishment works you can also have a lot of the timber materials sourced from bamboo plantations. While structural and roofing joists are obvious candidates you can also install door and window frames made from bamboo wood. Because it is a strong and hard wearing type of wood it is ideal for many areas of construction.
Furniture
Practically any piece of furniture can be made of bamboo rather than less sustainable types of wood. If you are having something custom made by a carpenter you should specify bamboo as the source material. But many furniture stores now will also stock items produced at large scale using this environmentally friendly material.
This list of environmentally friendly bamboo household products is by far not exhaustive, and new products are coming to market on a weekly basis. Switching to bamboo will definitely provide you with functional requirements you have in household items, while at the same time improving your health and environmental impact.
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