Green Focus: Bamboo

From The Month April 2012

DID YOU KNOW?
Bamboo is not a type of wood, it’s a grass • Bamboo is stronger than oak and has a tensile strength greater than steel • The sugars in bamboo give it its beautiful natural colour variations • Bamboo produces 30% more oxygen than other plants • Bamboo survived the Hiroshima atomic bomb and re-greened the same year • Pandas do not feed on the type of bamboo used in bamboo flooring (Mao/Moso bamboo), which means that the endangered Panda is unaffected by bamboo farming • Thomas Edison used bamboo filaments in his first light bulbs, and one of those bulbs is STILL burning today, at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

Info and images courtesy The Bamboo Warehouse, see more at www.bamboowarehouse.co.za