Green England Articles Say it with Bamboo this Christmas?

Say it with Bamboo this Christmas?

Bambienti is a new brand which designs and produces furniture and accessories made entirely out of Bamboo, a material that offers strength, style and natural sustainability. Their designs are all hand-made in family-run workshops and currently include solid, glass-topped and occasional tables,seating, screens, storage and shelving, lighting, accessories and garden water features.

Bambienti was founded by Charles Colbourne a procurement specialist who has previously worked within the marketing and advertising sectors.

Colbourne had originally set out to produce a small range of handmade furniture using sustainable timber but found that such materials were often very hard to access for the small artisan type producers he wanted to work with in developing countries.

The brand is seeking to appeal to the growing ethical household consumer market where buyers are concerned about the impact their products have on both producers and the environment.

Bamboo has previously been perceived as being too weak for serious furniture projects however with a high bearing capacity and tensile strength

comparable to steel this ancient material has impressive credentials as a viable and long term alternative to diminishing sustainable hardwood resources.

They include the following:

Bamboo offers support to a planet with increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. It releases more oxygen than the equivalent number of

conventional trees, as much as 35% in some cases. It is also capable of removing as much as 12 tons of carbon dioxide from the air per hectare(10,000 m2).

Bamboo grows incredibly quickly, as much as a metre a day. To compare lifecycles; Rubberwood takes about 25 years to reach felling maturity, Oak takes up to 120 years. Yet Bamboo takes just 2-7 years.

Natural sustainability is one of the most significant advantages Bamboo offers over conventional timber. When a conventional tree is cut down it is gone forever, in contrast Bamboo requires no replanting after harvesting. This is because it has an extensive net like root system that keeps sending up new shoots.

The underlying principle behind the Bambienti brand is that their efforts should not simply stop at the point of sourcing a green material. Rather that any effort to improve long term sustainability for the planet is dependent upon the success brands have in enabling communities who continue to live off of their land access to sustainable materials and methods.

Those communities who have suffered land degradation due to uncontrolled or illegal timber logging have in Bamboo a material that can offer some much needed respite for two reasons.Firstly Bamboo is a viable alternate that can limit our dependence upon already limited conventional timber resources.

Secondly, unlike with conventional trees the root structure of Bamboo can develop within the top soil of degraded land, the culms (Bamboo poles) tend to grow rapidly, cover land very quickly and prevent soil run-off and produce considerable biomass.



Bambienti are currently offering 20% discount on all products.

For more information see www.bambienti.com

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