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There are over fifteen hundred different types of bamboo around the world and all fall into the genus of grass although when you see a ninety foot tall, four foot circumference example, it is hard to think it is related to the green grass of the local park. It is also one of the most remarkably versatile plants on the planet. In Hong Kong you can be in a restaurant eating a special meal which includes young tender bamboo shoots using bamboo chopsticks sitting on a bamboo chair at a bamboo table. At the same time you may well be looking out of the window and watching the latest architectural wonder of a new skyscraper under construction with bamboo scaffolding. This is one of the most surreal sites to witness; all the latest building materials of steel, concrete and glass that have been designed by the most sophisticated CAD software perhaps in London or New York and as it is erected and bought to life there are dozens of construction workers a couple of hundred feet off the ground relying on long irregular bamboo shoots! The versatility of the bamboo means it can be used for a thousand different everyday things and as most of it grows best in the Far East it is the major manufacturing part of the world. It should come as no surprise to discover that one of the latest products to come from the Far East is bamboo pillows. These pillows made from fine strips of bamboo have been around in China for thousands of years but are only just now appearing in Europe and the United States. For once there is some good news ecologically about bamboo products such as the pillow and that is the more a bamboo is cut the faster it grows. Unlike felling hardwood which simple ends the life of a one hundred year old tree for good, bamboo is therefore fully sustainable without even planting new ones. The Giant Panda and the Brown Panda both survive almost exclusively off young bamboo shoots and the variety of bamboo known as Mao that is used for bamboo pillows as well as many other items is not the bamboo these creatures eat. Neither does it grow in the areas where most pandas live. There is an American school in Bali that calls itself the Green School and it is worth looking at their site and seeing the fantastic buildings all made entirely from bamboo. The ethos of the school is to teach the children about the alternatives to the industrial greed and waste that previous generations have been responsible for in shortening the life of this planet. Bamboo is being looked at by academics as well as environmentalists as a future substitute for many things where concrete and wood has been used in the past. In Indonesia there are many examples of houses built entirely of bamboo and in the USA there have been recent attempts to grow different strains of bamboo. For your bamboo pillows visit http://www.dekbed.co.uk/blog
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