Bamboo Housewares
Historical Use and growth of industry:
The use of bamboo in houseware applications has flourished over the last decade in North America, though strictly from a time standpoint this pales in comparison to its’ use in and throughout Asia. Historically, and for millennia, bamboo was used in the domestic Asia but more in its raw form, without the application of glues in the process. Chopsticks would be an obvious front-runner, as would various bowl and containment devises that were made from segments of the bamboo stock material (ie: cut a pole below 2 subsequent nodes, and you have a cup, for example). The advancement in glue manufacturing methodologies has pushed the acceptance in the western world, not only because it can make the product more stable over the various climatic regions of use, but it also opened up aesthetic design elements which mesh more with western design than did the historical “Asian” feel synonymous with products being made from strictly cylindrical sections of a bamboo pole.
Different options/types:
As glorified and thrust into popularity with flooring products, the bamboo for house ware products comes in 3 main grain patterns, and 2 colors. The grain orientation is horizontal, vertical, or end-grain, with the difference being how the individual, planed bamboo strips are glued together. For the horizontal construction, the strips are glued along their short side (ie: edge-to-edge). This is also considered “flat sawn”, and can best be described by the visual presence of the bamboo nodes, which are roughly equal spaced along of the length of the cut strips. The vertical cut is made when the longer cross-sectional side of the strips is glued together, making the pattern much tighter and linear. Also called a rift cut, the vertical orientation lacks the tell-tale node appearance found on the horizontal. The end-grain option is as the name denotes, it visually shows the end profile of the laminated bamboo strips. Though it lacks any visual presence of the node, it does highlight the vascular nature of the bamboo fibers and cells. Instead of being elongated strips, the aesthetic is one of many tiny dots, in a gradual progression of both either greater density in one direction to a lower density in the opposite direction. The dots/filaments with a tighter density indicate they were closer to the outside wall of the bamboo shoot during growth, as the greater density equates to greater hardness, and the outside of the bamboo is always harder than the inside.
For the color of bamboo, the natural (untreated) color is a light tan and maple color. Due to inherent and slight color differences in the material (as color can vary as it relates to amount of growth, degree of exposure to sunlight, amount of rainfall, height on the mountain, etc.), most manufacturers put their material through a bleaching process to ensure color consistency throughout their products. The other main derivative color is achieved through a carbonizing process, wherein the bamboo fibers are put into high pressure steam tank. This process effectively converts the starches in the bamboo to sugar, changing the color to a light brown. Unlike a stain, this color is consistent through the entire thickness of the material.
Comparison to traditional products:
In comparison to traditional wooden houseware items, there are definitely similarities as well as differences when bamboo comes into the equation. The main similarity is that bamboo is a one-to-one replacement for wood, meaning that any household item that is made with real wood can also be made with bamboo, with the only variances being the inherent species differences between bamboo and wood it is being compared to. The main difference between bamboo and other woods is that historically more wood products were made of full pieces of wood, wherein the vast majority of the bamboo products are heavily engineered in an effort to outperform traditional pieces of large wood. Though traditional wood can be engineered in an identical way to bamboo (ie: glueing smaller strips together), in general this is seen as more costly with real wood, than with a species like bamboo that thrives being engineered in such a fashion.
NOTE: Before too much is shed on this, it is important that one understands that bamboo is a raw material, and it can be treated in different ways (different additives, different manufacturing methods, etc), to produce completely different products. The adage, “not all bamboo is equal” is important to understand in all bamboo products that are made by gluing pieces together. Though this tends to be less of an issue with houseware items entering the United States (due to FDA and USDA requirements), it is highly probably that materials physically sold in areas without such strong government oversight could have suspect components (chemicals, additives, etc.) in their products.
Insider Knowledge:
Though as mentioned above, one can reasonably assume that legitimate houseware importers adhere to the FDA and USDA guidelines for production, the main concern is toxicity, and either the potential release of toxins in the air, or if the product is used in connection with food, that the chemicals and additives used are “food-grade”. Any bamboo product with a ‘glue line’ can potentially be a concern. It is recommended to ask the supplier for a test report on the actual testing of their product (formaldehyde emissions being the main concern), as well as a Material Data Safety Sheet (MSDS) for the glue used. Though this is ultimately only a test to show a point in time, it should reflect the manufacturers’ attention to the potential concern.
Possible Certifications (and what they mean):
Since bamboo as a raw material is now available as FSC-certified, it is possible to find houseware items carrying FSC-certified bamboo, whether this is important to you or not. Being that bamboo is rapidly renewable and does not need pesticides, the value of FSC for bamboo is questionable as to whether it really affects anything, or if it is just a stamp of approval to denote differentiation.
