Carbonized Bamboo and More!

Carbonized bamboo made up the filament in one of Thomas Edison’s first commercially successful incandescent lamps. That light has its competition now in LED light bulbs and CFL’s, but bamboo is still a well-utilized plant.

What an amazingly versatile plant! To see scaffolding of bamboo at a construction site is a curiosity to Westerners, to be sure, but it has long been used also for fencemaking, bridges, walking sticks, canoes, tableware, decorative artwork carving, furniture, chopsticks, food steamers, toys, bicycles, hats, and martial arts weaponry.

Bamboo has gained increasing popularity in the culinary world as a material for cutting boards, as they are hard enough to withstand years of knife abuse, yet more forgiving to the knife blade, causing less damage to the edged utensils over time. In the movie ‘A River Runs Through It’, the beautifully backlit slender poles were of bamboo, the traditional material used for fly fishing rods.

Bamboo is used in Chinese medicine for treating infections. It is used extensively in gardens, as a building material, and as a food source, a low calorie source of potassium. Modern manufacturers are also seeing a gain in popularity for flooring made of bamboo pieces steamed, flattened, glued together, finished, and cut.

Many prehistoric bamboos have existed since prehistoric eras. Some species of bamboo exceeded heights of 250 feet.

Women’s clothing made from bamboo fiber is notable for its soft feel and even claims natural antibacterial properties. Bed sheets and towels made from bamboo have become luxury items. Some skateboard and snowboard deck manufacturers as well as surfboard builders are beginning to use bamboo construction as it is both lighter and stronger than traditional materials and its cultivation is environmentally friendly, since bamboo can be grown quickly without pesticides or fertilizers.

While it may be true that bamboo seldom and unpredictably flowers, at Village Green Gifts, we expect to see continued growth in bamboo’s popularity.

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