Long considered a low-end product, the ubiquitous bamboo is coming into its own. It’s become an internationally sought-after material for high end homewares, furniture, construction materials and finishings. And when grown in managed plantations, it could be the miracle plant that profitably sustains Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry while raising the country’s international profile on resource management.
Bamboo is the fastest-growing plant on earth, surviving both droughts and floods. It can grow up to a metre a day and reach its full height in two or three months. Growing in the most infertile of soils, its falling leaves provide compost. The root system of bamboo spreads quickly, stabilizing river banks, reversing erosion and raising the water table. It is ideal for reforesting degraded lands, mine tailings and wetlands. Clumping bamboo species are usually preferred to running species, which can be invasive. Bamboo grows from the seaside to altitudes of 4000m, and its 1200 species can withstand temperatures ranging from 20C to +45C.
At Queen’s University in Canada, a researcher has adapted the Canadian timber industry’s advanced technology to create composite building materials using bamboo. His tests and those of other researchers confirm that these materials are stronger, lighter and more resilient than those made of wood, and can be produced for a fraction of the cost.
An absence of standard bamboo and bamboo building codes has been a constraint in the development of bamboo as a modern construction material. In 1997 the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) was established and the Dutch government funded a project to develop a code for bamboo. A comprehensive draft document was written by a group of international experts and submitted to the ISO. Bamboo is expected to have ISO standards by 2004, bringing it to the level of an internationally recognized building and engineering material. Standardized building materials, both composite materials like bamboo plywood (plyboo) and laminated beams, are expected to be widely adopted in Europe. An EU-funded study has proved that bamboo plantations are feasible all over Europe. In South America, bamboo has been used for housing and public buildings for hundreds of years. These are often the only structures to survive the region’s devastating earthquakes. In Equador, a factory is producing 50 bamboo houses a day which are sold for under $400, mainly to poor single mothers. The 30 square metre houses can be erected in a few hours. This technology could also be used for refugee or low-cost urban housing here in Indonesia. To remove the stigma of the bamboo house, which is seen as shelter only for the poorest in developing countries, the walls can be plastered and painted and the composite bamboo panel roof resembles more expensive materials. In fact, bamboo houses are becoming a fashion trend among South America’s wealthy.
Perhaps most exciting, bamboo has huge potential as a quick-growing, cheap and renewable source of pulp for paper mills. Bamboo’s long fibres produce exceptionally high quality paper. Indonesia has two of the largest pulp mills in the world, currently being fed by the strip-mining of natural forests at the rate of nearly 2 million hectares a year. Imagine the implications of replacing some or all of the wood currently being cut from wild forests with bamboo or agricultural by-products, as is now being done in several countries.
Tropical forests take about 38 years to regenerate to a point where they can be reharvested. The rotation of Acacia, which is now being planted in some mill plantations, is 7 years. Bamboo matures in 3 - 4 years, after which it can be harvested annually. If well managed, it never needs replanting. Bamboo is currently being used successfully for paper manufacture in China and Brazil, and the United States imports bamboo pulp for its paper industry from Thailand.
According to Dr Ian Hunter, Director General of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR), there is no reason why everything currently being made of wood could not be made of bamboo, including high quality paper. It can be mixed with hardwood, rice straw, recycled paper and other plant materials for pulp production. Every real and perceived obstacle to making paper with bamboo has now been overcome. Bamboo grows quickly in almost any Indonesian environment with about 120 species being distributed around the archipelago. Industrial plantations could be established in existing plantations or on deforested/degraded land, or bamboo could be purchased as a cash crop from adjacent villages.
China is years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of understanding the mass cultivation and commercial utilization of bamboo. The government employs thousands of scientists to research bamboo propagation, experiment with it as a wood substitute and develop new commercial applications. China now has 4 million hectares of managed bamboo forests compared to 1 - 2 million hectares of natural bamboo forests. The bamboo plantations are carefully irrigated and cultivated, producing larger and faster-growing clumps than the natural forest. According to the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), by 2010 bamboo is expected to substitute for over 29 million cubic metres of wood. China has 23 pulp mills currently on line or under construction which are dedicated to the manufacture of bamboo pulp for paper.
Brazil is presently the only New World country that grows bamboo for making paper. Grupo Santos, a major Brazilian cement-making company, has demonstrated that bamboo can be profitable. The company substituted sugar cane plantations with 40,000 hectares of Asian B. vulgaris. Santos has found that the process of making paper from bamboo uses 10% less cellulose than paper production from wood. This company is now the second largest producer of paper sacks in Brazil, with 70% of its production being in paper sacks for cement using bamboo pulp and the remainder for soap boxes, McDonald’s wrappers and chocolate wrappers. The company plans to plant another 6,000 hectares.
Ironically, Indonesia was a world leader in producing bamboo paper less than 50 years ago. In 1968, two mills in East Java and one in South Sulawesi began producing writing and printing paper from 100% bamboo pulp. Supplies of bamboo were obtained from natural forests nearby. But no bamboo plantations were established by the mills, and population pressure and over- harvesting of bamboo exhausted supplies in just a few years. In the 1970’s, the mills were forced to start using wood.
The Far Eastern Economic Review recently ran a feature on the many contemporary uses of bamboo which is bound to raise interest in this versatile material. But, like natural forests round the world, bamboo is a finite resource vulnerable to exploitation. It’s hard to imagine now, but if bamboo becomes a popular industrial resource it could soon disappear if not protected by the establishment of properly managed plantations.
Recent research reveals that Balinese families each use about the equivalent of half a hectare of bamboo each year for ceremonies. This is all taken from existing stands; almost no bamboo is being planted. Already some Balinese communities are importing bamboo from Java. Perhaps small bamboo plantations could be a viable cottage industry here. A new bamboo plantation offers a 3-5 year return on investment.
