http://www.textileworld.com/Articles/2008/March_2008/Features/Not_Your_Run-Of-The-Mill_Bandage.html

Bamboo is on the verge of so many technical breakthroughs! We are constantly amazed by the niches bamboo is filling.  Here is an article about bandages made from bamboo and glass filaments that naturally wick up blood, stop bleeding, and help wounds clot without forming scabs.

These amazing bandages are ready to help first-responders, emergency care and military first-aid stop heavy bleeding and save the lives of their patients!

And a bonus from the development of these gauzy bandages is that the spinning company who will be developing the bamboo yarn will be looking into other grades of bamboo yarns for garment and consumer procurment, so may we wish them happy endeavors!!

Popularity: 41% [?]

One billion handsets produced globally each year and only 10% recycled. Average mobile phone user replaces their handset every 18 months. This has a big impact on the environment; 36kg of CO2 is used to make one 90g phone. To reduce the impact of the mobile phone it’s time to rethink the materials mobile phone are made of and the manner we recharge them.

The bamboo degradable mobile phone
The bamboo is a degradable mobile phone. When the battery, antenna and print board are removed the case can be placed in compos and a few weeks later the case will begin to disintegrate. Inside the case are bamboo seeds, these will start to grow and feet on the case. After a few months the will turn in to bamboo plant which compensates the impact manufacturing process the bamboo phone has on the environment.

Materials
The case of the bamboo phone is made out two materials. Number one is a bio-plastic which is derived from renewable raw materials such as corn. Number two is bamboo which is a grass and can grow two feet or more a day. When it’s harvested, it need not be replanted, because it will grow a new shoot from its extensive root system. So bamboo renews itself readily, unlike hardwood trees, which, once cut, are gone forever. Bamboo is an endlessly renewable resource.

Energy
The inefficient recharging of the mobile phones has also an impact the environment. We could save enough energy in one year to power 60,000 European when 10% of the mobile phone users turn off the electricity supply to the chargers after use. The bamboo mobile phone can be recharged with muscle power. The phone is equipped whit a cranking charger; a 3-minute cranking session gives the phone enough power to make one call. This means the bamboo phone never runs out of energy. The phone is also equipped with a monochrome display to ensure maximum energy efficiency.

Green gadget
The use of materials and the possibility to recharge the phone whit muscle power give the phone a very low carbon footprint and reduce the impact on the environment. This makes the phone “a green gadget”

reference: http://www.core77.com

Popularity: 72% [?]

Bamboo Composite Fiber

Bamboo Fiber, once again, blows my mind with this completely Bamboo Fiber Bicycle Frame. For thousands of year bamboo has been used for many things including everything from utenciles to paper. Now it seems that there is a rush to find new ways to use the fiber in or raw material for anything that can be thought of.

The Bamboo Fiber Composite Fiber Inventor

Brano Meres, grew up in Tlmace, in central Slovakia. He now  lives in Bratislava, the capital. He has an MSc in Mechanical Engineering (majored in Thermal Power Engineering) at Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. More about him and his work can be found on his website: www.bmeres.com

Like many other these days Brano has taken Bamboo into a new demention that no one has conceived of yet. I have a strong feeling that this trend will expand exponentially as more people begin to thing of the Bamboo Fiber as new building block for some already existing concepts, and will dazzle us with things we could have never imagined before. Cheers to Bamboo!

Popularity: 87% [?]

In China, Bamboo has been haled as “friend of the people” and Colombians revere this plant as a “gift of the gods.”

new growth

There are approximately 2400 bamboo species worldwide, typically found in tropical and subtropical climates. There are, however, more than 200 evergreen bamboos that are temperate species and will grow well in regions that experience cold weather up to -10 and warmer.

Bamboos vary from ground cover species to giant timber species that can stand up to 75 ft. All bamboos belong to Graminea, the grass family. A bamboo shoot grows from buds that form on the parent plant’s underground stems or rhizome. The shoots will emerge from the ground at their full diameter and grow taller for the length of their particular growing season. Some tropical bamboos can grow several feet per day during their prime growth, you can actually watch them grow! This new growth will only occur once a year. The bamboo stalk will grow as tall as it will get in that first season, and already be it’s full diameter, but as the years progress it will become leafier and develop it’s hardwood characteristics within it’s stem.

A new bamboo grove takes time to establish. The underground network of rhizomes is so important to a bamboo’s propagation that it will focus most of it’s energy on that system for the first few years. New bamboo shoots will still sprout and become mature culms but they may be of a smaller diameter and/or shorter height then they will reach eventually. Bamboos store their photosynthetic energy in the rhizomes to support new growth—so the older and more mature the rhizome network and the more mature the bamboo culms, the more energy can be stored for increasingly impressive spring growth. It can take 5-10 years for a bamboo grove to reach it’s full potential of height and thickness.

Some people wonder about the invasive potential of bamboos.

Each bamboo fits into one of two rhizome categories: running or clumping.

Running bamboos grow rhizomes varying distances from the parent plant before growing new culms. These species have the potential to take over large areas and form a single specie forest. Many large, hardy, and temperate species are runners, however, there are many methods available to contain running bamboos in order to prevent them from taking over an entire area.

Barriers can be planted 2-3 ft. in the ground, or the bamboo could be planted in raised beds. Buildings with foundations can be used as one part of the containment plan. Bodies of water will prevent the rhizomes from spreading, as will already well established shady areas–such as a dense forest. New shoots are easily cut back with a lawnmower or by hand, though the runner bamboos will keep growing their rhizomes, so containment should always be a part of the consideration for their growth.

Clumping bamboos become denser year after year, slowly spreading outward from the parent plant. These species are not considered invasive. These bamboo species could also be contained, as an added precaution, but they should be much easier to keep track of.

The benefit of using bamboos for commercial purposes is that the parent grows new shoots every year, it takes about 5-7 years for each culm to mature and then the mature bamboo is cut, while the new shoots grow and the other culms mature. It’s a beautiful progression, the grove will grow bigger, and the harvest will eventually be a yearly practice, a consistent source of new material.

leaf litter

Bamboos are happiest in highly organic, well-drained soils of a somewhat neutral ph. The best fertilizers are composted manure, organic mulch and leaf hummus. A more mature grove will create it’s own leaf mulch, which is almost impervious to weeds.

source:

Palms Won’t Grow Here and Other Myths:  Warm Climate Plants for Cooler Areas by David A. Francko  (213-222)

Popularity: 100% [?]

Bamboo Plants

As early as the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century B.C.), the Chinese used bamboo for making household articles and weapons, such as bows and arrows. Before paper was invented, slips of bamboo were the most important writing medium. More widely used than silk, for example, because they were cheaper, resistant to corrosion, and more abundant. Bamboo has thus played an important part in the spread and development of traditional Chinese culture.

In the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D.220) bamboo was used for paper making because it produced high-quality paper and was inexpensive – three tons of bamboo could yield one ton of paper pulp. Bamboo is still an important raw material for paper making today. Some 1,600 years ago, people wrote with brushes on xuan paper made from young bamboo. Xuan paper is still popular for Chinese calligraphy and paintings

Today bamboo is widely used for household articles such as mats, beds, pillows, benches, chairs, cabinets, buckets, chopsticks, spoons, baskets, and handheld fans. It is also used to make traditional Chinese musical instruments such as the sheng, a reed instrument; the di, a flute; and the xiao, a flute held vertically.

Bamboo has 1000’s of uses and it’s application as a textile fiber is just emerging. It benefits the environment not only in growing the plant ( excellent carbon dioxide and nitrogen sink , produces copious oxygen) but also the processing since it is a closed system with non toxic chemicals, and will hopefully lessen the demand for higher polluting material. Although Bamboo has long been known in Asia for its many unique applications, the idea of using bamboo to spin yarn is a much more recent technology.

Species used for bamboo fiber is Phyllostachys Heterocycla Pubescent commonly known as Moso bamboo. This is the largest of temperate zone bamboo species and is the most economically important bamboo species in China. It is most commonly used for construction purpose and edible bamboo shoots. Moso bamboo is prevalent throughout China and has the potential to be grown throughout the US.

Bamboo is known to be the fastest growing plant on earth, making it naturally highly renewable. In fact, bamboo grows to its maximum height in approximately 3 months and matures in 3-5 years for harvest with little or no environmental impact making it a remarkable and sustainable resource when compared to a tree forest that takes over 60 years to recover from deforestation. Like all plants grown and managed for commercial purposes, good harvesting practices must be exercised.

Crop rotation and inter-cropping with bamboo is not unheard of, but they are not common practices integrated with bamboo plantation management. The growth characteristics of some species enable it to spread rapidly across large areas. Because of its growth characteristics and ability to spread, bamboo is known to improve soil quality in degraded and eroded areas of land.

resource:

http://naturally-organic-bamboo.com,

Popularity: 69% [?]