(Blog)

While I’m satisfied with the cheap wood laminate flooring that I inherited when I bought my home, I’ve been waiting for the time when I’ve got the extra change needed to get some real hardwood floors installed. And as a tree-hugger, the first thing that came to mind was, naturally, bamboo.

Bamboo, unlike trees, can be harvested like any other crop, and grows back remarkably fast, but how “green” is it, really? Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one thinking about this. In short, since bamboo is a renewable resource, it’s definitely better than your average hardwood flooring, but the industry behind it isn’t. Apparently, bamboo is so hot right now that whole forests are being razed to make room for more bamboo crops.

That’s right. In order to make a legion of first-world “eco-conscious” Prius-drivers more satisfied with themselves, workers in the third-world are destroying swaths of our natural forests. It’s the dark side of “green”. What’s worse, much of this bamboo comes from China, so for those of us who buy Fair Trade coffee and look for locally-sourced materials in our products, know that some Chinese kid is suffering through borderline enslavement so that you can feel good about your renewable bamboo flooring.

Oh, and all those chemicals used in other materials? They’re used with bamboo as well. It’s not like changing one material will change all materials. Fortunately, as with any product, there are good and bad companies out there. Apparently, Teragren is one of the better ones. And there are no less than thirteen dealers in my area, so I’ll have to get a quote. But to be honest, after just this cursory search, I’m already kind of turned off of the whole notion, and I’m almost afraid to look into any other green products, because I suspect the entire thing is a house of cards built on lies and there’s no such thing as “green”, besides dollars.