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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

In fact, Bamboo houses are lighter than steel or concrete block construction.

Bamboo houses can be rated highly as a green product as they are a sustainable product harvested in tropical areas of Asia and South America.
 
The strength, flexibility and durability of Bamboo has long been known and utilised in Asia for centuries. It's uses are broad and varied, used in scaffolding for highrise construction, bridges, cathedrals, flooring, walls, clothing, paper, vinegar, cosmetics, animal feed and as a vegetable in human consumptions. When did you last enjoy bamboo shoot in your asian cuisine?
 
Currently, there is a growing chorus of architects, artists, interior designers and enviromentalists that are singing the praises of Bamboo. Long considered a member of the grass family, Bamboo can reach heights of 30 metres with a diameter of up to 25cms (10 inches) and grows at a rate of over a metre a day.
 
With this massive growth rate, Bamboo is seen by environmentalists as the building product of the future and it is now being cultivated and harvested for modern and traditional designed structures.
 
Architects have been fast to embrace this exciting natural product, with houses now used to construct expensive homes in Bamboo. A cottage industry has developed in Hawaii for homes constructed in Bamboo imported from Vietnam and in Colombia, leading architects Oscar Hidalgo Lopez, Marcelo Villegas and Simon Velez are at the forefront of modern bamboo architecture.
 
Hawaii-based Bamboo Technologies has attained government building code certification for one species of structural bamboo and has constructed in excess of 50 bamboo houses in Hawaii and California. The company has plans to expand in to Europe and increase its US base.
 
Bamboo has massive cost saving benefits over traditional products with savings per square foot reported as being in the region of 250%. The downside of Bamboo is that most of the product is sourced from Asia (China, India, Vietnam) and Latin America. As there are no commercial plantations in Europe or mainland USA, shipping the product isn't eco-friendly, but the sustainability issue can outweight the negatives.
 
China currently has 5.5 million hectares of Bamboo plantation and as the movement develops, we will see more innovative uses of this age-old product.
 
Personally, I can't wait to live in a Bamboo house.
 
Written for www.ecobites.com by eco writer Richard de Largie D'Alton