What distinguishes bamboo from other materials is its ability to mitigate global challenges such as climate change, the fight against poverty, the preservation of the environment, the resilience of construction work and now plastic pollution.
In addition to its ability to replace disposable plastics, the plant may act as strong carbon sinks. And as a proven instrument in the land restorer, bamboo can thrive on marginal, degraded countries with minimal agricultural inputs.
It also grows quickly and binds floors thanks to the extensive networks of rhizomes (thick, underground stems) that sets it. Recently, Bamboo made the news after flooding in Pakistan and Earcoveno in Ecuador, since it is a strong, inexpensive and resilient material for reconstruction efforts after the creation.
Bamboo as a replacement for plastic
In recent years, China has set up several initiatives and plans to exploit bamboo potential as an alternative to plastic.
Inbar worked with the Chinese government in 2022 to start bamboo as a replacement for plastic initiative (BASP). The aim is to use bamboo to reduce plastic pollution, to remedy climate change and to accelerate the performance of the United Nations agenda 2030 for sustainable development. The ultimate goal of BAP is to promote new global paradigms and modes in the entire chain of bamboo products that can replace plastics.
The Chinese government has taken several supporting measures to facilitate the implementation of BAP.
In 2023, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration in China and Inbar started the first international symposium on bamboo as a replacement for plastic. The Global Action Plan of Baps was published as part of the event. It is the main framework for the coordination and scaling of international BAP campaign and is supplemented by a domestic action plan for China.
The Chinese plan aims at three main plastic substitution areas: daily necessities, industrial products as well as architecture and building materials. A temporary bamboo-for-plastic industrial system is also to be built by 2025; Increase the comprehensive added value of the most important bamboo-for-plastic products by more than 20 percent in relation to 2022 numbers; And improve the comprehensive usage rate of bamboo materials by 20 percent.
Achieving this goal requires a high degree of multidecectoral coordination and robust state support. Li believes that this ambitious goal can be reached under the right conditions. It requires “joint efforts of all those involved and actors due to their skills, knowledge and technologies to pursue and fulfill its goals to beat plastic pollution”.
An example of this in practice can be seen in the county of East Chinese county Anji, province of Zhejiang. Although Anji is only based on 1.8 percent of national bamboo forest resources, she is responsible for 10 percent of the total national production value.
The area has a sustainable bamboo production and processing center, in which ecotourism, food and biofuel shops are integrated. It is emphasized how strongly the coordination of industry, the support of the government and the participation of the public can stimulate the regional development of bamboo towards traditional plastics.
With the right to enable guidelines and business framework, similar clusters could be created in other bamboo -rich regions of the global south. “The bamboo -based plastic replacement industries of other countries are still in its infancy and can learn from China's experience,” says Fang.
The establishment of a national strategy has top priority for these countries. This aligns the stakeholders of the sector and ensures cohesive growth. In their specific contexts, the countries should develop national politics that comprises various tax incentive mechanisms: tax exemption status for small and medium -sized companies; Tax discounts for imported devices, tools and machines; and optimized methods for importing materials. Such measures will help attract investments and strengthen the value chains of bamboo.
International feasibility of bamboo production chains
In 2023, Inbar headed an important international pilot project to evaluate bamboo value chains, which is expected to complete next year. It examines genes, cultivation, material properties, products and life cycle reviews in six countries that represent bamboo -rich areas in the tropical and subtropical belts: Vietnam, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Ecuador and Brazil.
So far, the researchers have examined several high -ranking bamboo species, including Oxytenanthera AbysinicaPresent Guadua Angustifolia (“Kunth”) and Thyrsostachys Oliveri (“Gambling”), for growth rate, structural properties, gene interactions and more.
In addition to Oxytenanthera Abysinica The cultivation manual was translated into English to lead the training, to spread knowledge and to expand its presence in Africa. Polls were carried out to determine which plastic goods are suitable for substitution. In Ethiopia that has a national bamboo policy frame, they contain blinds, handbags and packaging film.
Global Trade plays an important role in this initiative, supported by resources such as UN Comtrade, a comprehensive database for the pursuit of international trade flows. But before 2017, bamboo was fed as wood. This was due to a lack of codes for precise harmonized systems (HS), which form an international, numerical system for the classification of goods and to determine tariffs. 2018 was the first year in which the new HS codes were fully implemented, including categories for woven products, building materials and much more. This enabled the countries to report their bamboo trade closely.
This new data is very valuable. It revealed that tableware and kitchen dishes were the most traded bamboo raw materials, followed by products of daily use of products such as toothpicks. It enables the exact mapping of international trade flows, which means that decision -makers are determined when determining the markets, to which they should provide their resources for maximum effects.
It also serves as a “proof of concept”, with revised figures showing that bamboo raw materials were traded almost twice as large as the previously estimated dollar amount. This increases from 1.7 billion US dollars in 2017 to 3.2 billion in 2018. An environmentally friendly product than previously assumed, which is of crucial importance for the shift in public perceptions.
The large -scale cultivation of bamboo could have an ecological and forestry concerns. The type of management system, the selection of species and the local biodiversity can determine all very different results. In general, bamboo can thrive under Agroforstei, silvi culture (walface management), intercropping and round management approaches, all of which can promote biological diversity and plant other forest fruits.
These also offer farmers additional economic advantages by diversifying the income flows. Since bamboo can grow on suboptimal land, it can preserve local forests and avoid the interventions in the local biodiversity. These actions depend on selecting non-invasive species and using sustainable cultivation techniques.
Go forward
However, serious challenges remain. For example, many bamboo products are still traded with HS codes for wood headings such as bamboo coal and bamboo floor. Bamboo must meet the same requirements and standards as wood for entering the European Union market, which contains regulations for the deficiency -free imports. However, bamboo is a kind of grass and has a completely different growth pattern and a management regime for trees. This creates a stressful financial burden for bamboo producers.
By reducing tariffs for bamboo products, you can also make plastic products more competitive that already enjoy lower tariffs.
Actors from public, private and third -party organizations have to work together to unlock the financial resources that would help bamboo companies with small to medium sizes. With the financing, they were able to scale, refine and automate production, design favorable political framework conditions and enable conditions and develop product quality standards.
In addition, farmers and rural communities need more convenient and affordable links with certification systems and training courses of third -party providers. In the meantime, public campaigns (stated between the state, civil society and the media) should sharpen consumer awareness of the role of Bamboo when reducing plastic pollution.
Each solution must be cross -border and therefore multilateral nature to use the potential of bamboo. With the right initiatives and framework conditions, the work can be the power pack that the world needs to face the challenges of our time.
This article was originally published on the Earth dialogue under a Creative Commons license.