Bamboo Facts

Interesting Facts About Bamboo

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In 1854, Henricg Globel, a German watchmaker made the first true light bulb. He used a carbonized bamboo

filament inside a glass bulb.


Thomas Edison also used bamboo as rebar for the

reinforcement of hisswimming pool. To this day,

the pool has never leaked


The needle in Alexander Graham Bell’s first

phonograph was made of bamboo.


Thomas Edison's first successful incandescent lamp (light bulb) used a filament

made of carbonized bamboo. It was patented in 1880. This

light bulb still burnstoday in the Smithsonian

Museum in Washington DC www.bamboohouseindia.org

The modern and glamorous game of polo owes its origins to Sagol Kangjei, a sport

that originated in the Imphal valley of Manipur. To this day, Meitei riders astride sturdy Manipuri ponies play many-a-side

polo, using rattan sticks and a ball fashioned from bamboo rhizome. The

practice of using a ball made from bamboo rhizome continued for many years, to be replaced only well into the 20th century with balls made of hard plastic material.


Amidst death and destruction, bamboo survived the

Hiroshima atomic blast closer to ground zero than any other living thing and provided the first re-greening in Hiroshima

after the blast in 1945.


With a tensile strength superior to mild steel

(withstands up to 52,000 Pounds of pressure psi) and a

weight-to-strength ratio surpassing that of graphite,

bamboo is the strongest growing woody plant on earth.


Bamboo is the fastest growing canopy for the re-greening of degraded lands, and its stands release 35% more oxygen than

equivalent stands of trees. Some bamboo even sequester

up to 12 tons of carbon dioxide from the air per hectare.

Bamboo can also lower light intensity and protects against ultraviolet rays. Traditional belief holds that being in a

bamboo grove - the favorite dwelling place of Buddha -

restores calmness to emotions and stimulates creativity.

Bamboo is one of the strongest building materials. Bamboo's

tensile strength is 28,000 pounds per square inch versus 23,000 pounds per square inch

for steel.

Bamboo is a high-yield renewable resource: "bamboo ply" is now being used for wall

paneling and floor tiles; bamboo pulp for paper-

making; briquettes for fuel, raw material for housing

construction; and rebar for reinforced concrete beams.


There are 1500 species of bamboo on the earth. This diversity makes bamboo

adaptable to many environments. It can be

harvested in 3-5 years versus 10-20 years for most softwood. Bamboo tolerates extremes of

precipitation, from 30-250 inches of annual rainfall.

Bamboo shoots provide nutrition for millions of people worldwide.

In Japan, the antioxidant properties of pulverized bamboo skin can

prevent bacterial growth, and it is used as a natural food preservative.

Taiwan alone consumes 80,000 tons of bamboo shoots annually,

constituting a $50 million industry

Bamboo litter make fodder for animals and food for fish.


Bamboo leaves are normally utilized as fodder during

scarcity. Young bamboo leaves and twigs are a favorite meal for

elephants and the Panda.


Bamboo has for centuries been used in Ayurvedic medicine

and Chinese herbal medicine. Tabasheer, the powdered, hardened Secretion from

bamboo is used internally to treat asthma, coughs and can

be used as an aphrodisiac. www.bamboohouseindia.org

In China, ingredients from the root of the black bamboo help

treat kidney disease. Roots and leaves have also been used to treat venereal disease and cancer. Sap is said to reduce

fever, and ash will cure prickly heat.


A village in Indonesia reports that the water form within the culm is used to treat broken

bones effectively and that the tabasheer is used to promote

fertility in their cows. Current research points to bamboo's

potential in a number of medicinal uses.

Bamboo is a mystical plant: a symbol of strength, flexibility, tenacity, and

endurance. Throughout Asia, bamboo has for centuries been integral to

religious ceremonies, art, music, and daily life. It can be found in the paper,

the brush, and the inspiration for poems and paintings. Some of the earliest

historical records form the 2nd century B.C. were written on green bamboo

strips.www.bamboohouseindia.org

In the tropics it is possible to plant and 'grow your own home;. in

Costa Rica, 1000 houses of bamboo are built annually with material coming only from a 60 hectare

bamboo plantation. If an equivalent project used timber, it would require 500 hectares of our diminishing tropical rainforests.

Using bamboo to replace timber saves the rainforests. With a 10-30% annual increase in biomass versus 2 to 5% for trees, bamboo creates greater yields of raw material for use. One clump can produce 200 poles in the three to five years. Bamboo generates a crop every year.

Bamboo is a peerless erosion control agent, it's net like root system create an effective mechanism for watershed protection, stitching the soil together along fragile riverbanks, deforested areas, and in places prone to earthquakes and mud slides. Because of their wide-spreading root system, uniquely shaped leaves, and dense litter on the forest floor, the sum of stem flow rate and canopy intercept of bamboo is 25% which means that bamboo greatly reduces rain run off, preventing massive soil erosion and keeping up to twice as much water in the watershed.

Bamboo is a pioneering plant and can be grown in soil damaged by overgrazing and poor agricultural techniques. Unlike with most trees proper harvesting does not kill the bamboo plant so topsoil is held in place.

One of the enduring images of India’s freedom struggle is of

Mahatma Gandhi setting out on the Salt March in 1931, a 140

kilometer odyssey from Ahmedabad to Dandi. As always,

he carried little else but his conviction - and a bamboo stave.

A suspension bridge on the river in China is 250 yard long, 9 foot

wide and rests entirely on bamboo cables fastened over the water. It doesn't have a single nail or piece

of iron in it.


Bamboo grows at phenomenal rates, up to a foot in a single day!


A mature 100’x100’ patch of clumping bamboo can produce

enough construction materials to frame an entire house every year.


Bamboo has one of the highest rates of photosynthesis of any plant species


A sixty-foot tree cut for market takes 60 years to replace. A sixty-foot bamboo cut

for market takes 59 days to replace.


Over one billion people in the world live in bamboo houses


Bamboo absorbs 2/3 more carbon dioxide and releases 2/3 more oxygen

than any other plant on earth.


A single bamboo clump can produce up to 15 kilometers of

usable pole (up to 30 cm in diameter) in its lifetime.


Bamboo will not negatively impact our environment. In fact, Bamboo plants produce highly oxygenated

air and balanced humidity.


Bamboo stabilizes the earth with its erosion control and prevention, and restores the health of soil by

sequestering excess nitrogen.


The Bamboo plant is used for watershed protection, and soil remediation. It

retains water in the watershed, reduces runoff, sustains riverbanks and helps

mitigate water pollution due to its high nitrogen consumption.


Thank You


www.greenlivelihoods.org

Hyderabad

http://www.bamboohouseindia.org/

http://www.greenlivelihoods.org/

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