Man has found myriad of uses for bamboo plant
Man has found myriad of uses for bamboo plant
By Amir Sidharta
Man can survive without meat, but will die without bamboo. -- Confucius
JAKARTA (JP): Enter bamboo, a slender, fast-growing plant that is said to have miraculous potential in replenishing the earth. Uniquely, while it offers a myriad of environmental uses, it also has tremendous potential for industry. Its diversity should make bamboo attractive to environmentalists and industrialists alike.
Bamboo is considered as a miracle plant partly because of its capability to withstand immense pressure and stress. Bamboo is known to be one of the few things to survive the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima.
Primarily due to its property as the fastest growing plant in the world, bamboo has tremendous potential to provide environmental repair. Each year, millions of hectares of tropical rain forests are used primarily to provide the world with wood. If this continues, the world's rain forests will soon disappear.
Wood has a limited regenerative potential. It has a two to five percent annual increase in biomass and takes years to grow. Furthermore, if it is felled, it has to be replanted.
By contrast, bamboo has a much greater regenerative capacity. Each plant grows an average of two inches an hour, or over one meter a day. Bamboo shows a 10 to 30 percent annual increase in terms of biomass, much higher than wood. Bamboo can be harvested in four years, compared to seven to 20 years for trees. Once harvested, the mother plant continues to reproduce itself. One culm of bamboo produces more than one bamboo plant so it can be selectively harvested. Bamboo lives between 50 to 60 years.
Like wood, bamboo is hard and durable, has good tension and is therefore an appropriate substitute or alternative to wood. Bamboo is known to be able to withstand 52,000 pounds of pressure. Its tensile strength is 28,000 pounds per square inch, greater than steel at 23,000 psi. Bamboo reinforcement bars take up 170 times less energy to produce than the equivalent steel bars.
Highly durable bamboo can be used to make construction materials such as ply bamboo and bamboo flooring material. Finished properly, bamboo flooring has an appeal similar to teak parquet. China, the leading producer of bamboo products, boasts over 200 ply-bamboo factories.
Bamboo's long fibers makes it an excellent ingredient for paper pulp. Bamboo paper is made using a combination of wood and bamboo pulp. Although wood is a better material for paper pulp, the fact that the regeneration time for bamboo is far less gives it the potential to limit deforestation.
Two paper companies in Indonesia, one in Banyuwangi and the other in Goa, have used bamboo for pulp. However, the bamboo they used was not harvested properly, and therefore the supply of bamboo dropped significantly. This caused the companies to be unable to operate efficiently. The lack of a consistent and adequate supply has caused bamboo pulp paper and bamboo chopstick factories to close down in Indonesia.
Knowledge about bamboo agriculture has advanced remarkably. With proper harvesting, utilizing the techniques that are currently available, employing bamboo for pulp will not only reduce deforestation but also become profitable. Environmental potential
Apart from the variety of products into which bamboo can be developed, its significance for environmental repair goes beyond its use as an alternative to wood. The plant also has potential to provide erosion control. Bamboo's dense foliage limits rain fall. The sum stem flow rate and canopy interval intercept of bamboo is 25 percent, greatly reducing rain runoff. Its root system anchors topsoil to the earth, reducing earthquake and flood damage. The silica content emitted by the plant provides soil with a hardening agent. Bamboo is often seen lining edges of terraced landscapes of many Indonesian villages with semi-arid or degraded acid soils.
Due to its capacity to retain water, bamboo can be an excellent tool in watershed management. On average, one culm of bamboo can fix 5.8 cubic meters of soil. With its high biomass production, bamboo also has a great potential for carbon sequestration. It is also a good microclimate regulator, as it stabilizes temperature and lowers light intensity. Types of bamboo can grow on arid land to tidal flats.
As if its value to the environment were not enough, bamboo has numerous other specific functions, more than 5,000 according to one source book, Bamboo of Indonesia by Dr. Elizabeth Widjaya. One type of bamboo, the Thyrostachys Siamensis, provides excellent sound proofing. Planted along fences in a city, this plant will buffer not only pollution but noise as well.
Bamboo shoots are a well-known and increasingly popular foodstuff and are being developed for medicines. The shoots of yellow bamboo are believed to cure liver problems. Tabashir, the sap that hardens between the nodes of certain bamboo varieties, is known as a medicine for asthma. Research has indicated that bamboo has the potential to cure cancer.
The plant also sustains the production of diesel fuel and rayon fabrics. It should also be noted that Thomas Edison developed the light bulb using a filament made of carbonized bamboo.
Economic potential
According to the latest data, 70 million tons of bamboo is harvested annually around the world. In 1988 bamboo harvest totaled 20 million tons worldwide, providing a revenue of US$4.5 billion. New bamboo plantations earn a three to five-year return on investment, compared to eight to 10 years for rattan.
Many people in Asia have invested in the lucrative bamboo industry. In China, 6.8 million hectares of land is planted with bamboo, almost half of which is intensively managed for bamboo production.
At the forefront of the bamboo paper industry, China produced 152,500 tons in 1988. This marked an increase of 32 percent compared to the previous year. In India, 80 paper mills are partially or wholly dependent on paper making, consuming 62 percent of India's entire bamboo production.
In the food industry, the consumption of bamboo shoots is tremendous. The annual demand in Taiwan averages 80,000 tons, while Japan consumes almost twice as much. Every year Thailand exports 350 to 400 tons of canned shoots to Japan. Bamboo shoots are reported to earn $350 million annually.
Future business
With both environmental and industrial potential, bamboo should be an attractive investment commodity. Some 60,000 people in Indonesia depend on bamboo for their livelihood. lndonesia enjoys a yearly income of $150 million in foreign exchange earnings from bamboo products, and the number is increasing rapidly.
However, only a small number of investors have realized the plant's potential. Five years ago, Gunung Sewu Group's Great Giant Pineapple factory in Lampung, initially only produced bamboo shoots. Now it has allocated 1,250 hectares of land to be planted with 500,000 bamboo clusters of various kinds and ages.
A paper factory is being constructed nearby which will use bamboo as a raw material. It plans to start production by mid- year. Other large companies in Central Lampung, such as Salim Group's PT Sweet Indo Lampung, as well as Indra Rukmana's PT Gunung Madu Plantation and PT Gula Putih Mataram has started to plant bamboo for the reforestation of sites no longer adequate for the cultivation of sugar cane. The cuttings of old bamboo trees from the Great Giant Pineapple farm, are being used by the Gunung Sewu Group's PT Nusantara Tropical Fruits as supports for its banana trees. There is also a coal mine at Tanjung Enim in South Sumatra that uses bamboo to green their sites.
According to Agus Mashudi, a bamboo expert at their pineapple company's plantation in Terbanggi Besar, a national bamboo campaign is needed. Forestry Concession Right holders should be introduced to bamboos' reforestation properties. Perhaps they should even be required to reforest using bamboo, he added. Mashudi also suggested that bamboo be introduced to the general public, through Industrial Plant Forests or People's Industrial Plantations programs, especially outside Java, where land is still available. Bamboo would be ideal for critical areas in Indonesia, such as Eastern Nusa Tenggara, where the plant will also be able to improve the standard of living of the local population. He says that these programs need a foster parent to ensure that the bamboo from the programs will be further utilized for other industries. This can develop into an interdependent and mutually beneficial industry for both the farmers and their foster parents.
Mashudi's idea echoes former State Minister for the Environment Emil Salim's remarks at a seminar on the future of bamboo last year. Emil said experts should draw up a program for an integrated bamboo industry. "We can draw up a strategy of how to hike income through an integrated program linking cultivation with industry."
Foreseeing an increase in demand for bamboo products, due to its environmental and technological characteristics as well as its nutritional and medicinal properties, the time seems right to invest in bamboo. Bamboo will heal our wounded planet faster if major businesses support exploration and utilization.
At last year seminar on bamboo's future, chairman of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Aburizal Bakrie saw the bright prospects of bamboo as one of the major international commodities. State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said the protection of the environment will improve if Indonesia can encourage the use of natural resources for business purposes because businesses will have a vested interest in maintaining their operations.
Linda Garland of the Bali-based Environmental Bamboo Foundation reminds that "for thousands of years there has been a deep knowledge and respect for the importance of bamboo in the everyday life of the Asian people." Further, she claims, "now is the time for the full understanding of this miracle plant to be adopted and adapted by the world."
Sarwono Kusumaatmadja added that Indonesia has a large number of bamboo species but it has not diversified the use of bamboo. At one time bamboo was quite widely used, however its popularity has declined with the availability of new materials, such as plastic.
One problem in reestablishing bamboo as a sound material in daily life is the stigma attached to it. Bamboo is often considered a poor man's timber and an inferior substitute to wood and rattan. Former environmental minister Emil Salim says Indonesia should change this image of bamboo. Furthermore, bamboo is the most appropriate crop for remote, underdeveloped and earthquake prone areas such as Flores. Using bamboo, architects can build earthquake resistant houses. In addition, bamboo can also offer a sustainable resource for industry, thus increasing the standard of living of villagers.
Remember every time a light bulb burns out, that the carbonized-bamboo filament that Thomas Edison used to develop the first bulb, kept at the Smithsonian, still lights up during its rare test. Although he eventually concluded that bamboo was not the best choice for the filament, Edison couldn't have succeeded without bamboo. Without bamboo man will die, said Confucius. With bamboo man will not only survive, but may also reap considerable benefits.