6 ms·

If you start with something that is natural and sustainable (for example, bamboo), and you add to it something that is neither (for example, glue), then you end

If you start with something that is natural and sustainable (for example, bamboo), and you add to it something that is neither (for example, glue), then you end up with something that is neither natural nor sustainable. Sorry.

aembleton 5y ago
Bamboo grows so much quicker that even with glue it might be more sustainable than using other woods.
- TedShiller 5y ago
  What happens to glue when you throw it away?
  - op00to 5y ago
    What happens to anything when you throw it away? It gets encapsulated in more garbage and stays there for basically ever.
    - didsomeonesay 5y ago
      capturing carbon?
    - david-gpu 5y ago
      Wood rots. It doesn't even take that long. Let's not pretend natural biodegradable materials are the same.
      - DFHippie 5y ago
        Not so much in a landfill.
  - kleton 5y ago
    Phenol-formaldehyde thermoset breaks down into phenol and formaldehyde. It degrades a lot faster than polyolefins.
    - TedShiller 5y ago
      Does it "break down" sufficiently that you'd want the result in your tap water?
  - Veen 5y ago
    PVA is biodegradable, I believe. But I suppose it depends which glue they use.
geoffmunn 5y ago
It really bothers me when people try and pass off bamboo-based fabrics as being natural. It's called rayon and it's about as synthetic as you can possibly get. For those who are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  There is also an article specifically on bamboo textiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_textile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_textile
- jameshart 5y ago
  Sure, but ‘synthetic’ is a weird word. At root it just means ‘made via synthesis’. Rayon is not made by synthesizing cellulose, though - it is made by extracting natural cellulose. You could say the fibers are synthesized - but cotton needs to go through a spinning process too. Where do you draw the line between ‘synthesis’ and ‘manufacturing’? Sure, for rayon the cellulose extraction process is chemical, unlike the physical process used to get cellulose fibers out of cotton, but the raw material is still natural, plant grown cellulose. There are plenty of things that are made by taking natural ingredients, shoving them in a vat of toxic chemicals to transform them, then taking them out to use, which are generally still considered ‘natural’ products: leather, bleached flour, pressure treated wood, dyed cotton…
  - NortySpock 5y ago
    > Where do you draw the line between ‘synthesis’ and ‘manufacturing’? I assume the layperson will respond: "Synthesis uses chemicals, and manufacturing doesn't!" (visualizing a bandsaw or a punch-press machine) Of course manufacturing uses plenty of chemicals, but we don't always think about that when visualizing mechanical assembly processes.
  - _jal 5y ago
    > Sure, but ‘synthetic’ is a weird word. Every word is weird if you think about it too long. At least in the US, this is pretty simple, even if it offends the sensibilities of category pedants. "Natural" fibers are cotton, wool, linen, etc. Processing is fine, so long as it isn't "too processed". It is "Synthetic" if it ends in '-on', or feels like plastic or rubber.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
This is a genuine question I've been wondering about, but isn't the glue basically the same as the lignin that holds the wood (and I assume bamboo) together naturally. If it's not, could it be? This applies to a lot of wood products like plywood and MDF not just bamboo. Looks like some people are investigating it: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/using-lignin-as-a-sustainable-alternative-in-biobased-adhesives https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/using-lignin-as-a-sustainable-...
- stdbrouw 5y ago
  In wood fiber insulation, some factories do manage to use the wood's own lignin to keep the insulation batts together, though apparently it's harder to manage for very thick batts.
oblio 5y ago
Yeah, same thing with those transparent or hardened woods. It's wood + a ton of epoxy. Isn't epoxy made from fossil fuels, or am I completely off?
- tyingq 5y ago
  Epoxy uses BPA and ECH, both from fossil fuels, yes.
- hwillis 5y ago
  about 1/3rd correct. It is not made with epoxy[1]. Bamboo lumber is made with urea formaldehyde just like plywood. UF is made from CO2, ammonia, and methanol[2]. Methanol can come from plants or from fossil fuels. Ammonia uses 55% of global hydrogen, and that hydrogen comes from fossil fuels. Typically natural gas. There are also No-Added-Formaldehyde brands that used soy/PVA/other adhesives which can rely less or more fossil fuels (PVA is wood glue- vinyl based). Engineering bamboo (flooring doesn't always use UF) has ~5% wt. UF, so 20 kg of lumber requires ~.4 kg of ammonia. Using a methane feedstock that translates to ~.85 kg of CO2. 4% of the CO2 captured by the bamboo, for context. Ammonia can also be made from water, via electrolysis- .64 kg per 20 kg of bamboo. [1]: UF does not contain an epoxide group. Note also that epoxide is an incredibly generic type of chemical- all it means is that two pairs of radicals and an oxygen form a triangular bond. Epoxides can take all kinds of forms and be made from all kinds of stuff. For instance Epichlorohydrin is used to make some of the most common epoxy resins and is produced from glycerol, which comes from plant/animal sources generally. Not all of it, but most of it. [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/urea-formaldehyde-resins https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/ur...
i_am_proteus 5y ago
Glues were made from animals for centuries and are animal glue is still phenomenal for a number of woodworking applications. It's also much more expensive than synthetic glue. This does not mean that a glued lumber product is necessarily unnatural or unsustainable, but rather that the price may end up being higher, and the properties different, when using a natural glue.
- eropple 5y ago
  Totally right, but one thing I learned recently - hide glue isn't that much more expensive than the same manufacturers' PVA glues. (For folks who aren't familiar, though, animal glues aren't really substitutable for things like plywood; the ability to undo a hide glue joint is valuable in furnituremaking but not in plywood composition.)
  - i_am_proteus 5y ago
    And absolutely key in instrument making/repair. Hoof glue might be better for ply.
    - eropple 5y ago
      That makes sense. You're talking about a lot of glue for one panel, though, and at that point I would be worried about costing (and still more worried about delamination than with PVA). Plywood is weird when you think about it.
jgilias 5y ago
That's very absolutist thinking. Just because some solution doesn't solve all the problems outright doesn't mean that it's totally useless. What's the baseline? Using bamboo plywood thing instead of normal plywood? What's the end-goal? Increasing carbon sequestration when building stuff? Reducing ground water pollution? Something else? Where is the bamboo lumber used? How far is it shipped? For what it's used? Et cetera. Notice though that the article doesn't talk about sustainability, ecology, or being natural at all. It just shows how bamboo lumber is made. Which is interesting in its own right.
- ksec 5y ago
  >That's very absolutist thinking. The world, for some strange reason is dominated by absolutist thinking. It is part of the reason why we dont compromise any more. And it is a worrying trend.
snarf21 5y ago
Sure but so what. It is a question of how sustainable. Cutting 2x4s from pine trees still use a lot of non-sustainable energy sources. Saws burn gas and so do the trucks of the people who cut them down, so do the trucks that hall the logs, so do the mills that cut them, and so on and so on. There are always more externalities we don't consider. To me, the question is whether bamboo worse than other composite wood products. Does it store more carbon? Does it store the same carbon but more quickly? Can it grow using less land? Does it last longer than what would be used instead? If it is at least neutral on all the other questions, does it have other properties that make it preferable?
hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
Not sustainable or cost effective. Look at the amount of labor and processing it takes to make one sheet of plywood! By comparison, plywood manufacture is a simple process. Entire logs are shaved into veneer sheets, rough cut, laminated together then finish cut. 302 Euros for a 4x8x3/4 sheet of 5-ply plywood that's inferior in most ways to hardwood plywood is crazy. By comparison, the same sheet of hardwood A-B grade plywood would run somewhere between $40-$80 a sheet. Trees are a great sustainable and renewable resource, they just take longer to grow.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  Please note that this is not automated yet. I bet that automation could make bamboo plywood cheaper than hardwood plywood... with the same level of quality. I mean... Some species are ready to harvest in 90 days(not sure if those are applicable, though). But typical hardwood is decades of growth time to harvest.
Enginerrrd 5y ago
You seem to imply that it's a given that glue is not sustainable. Is that the case?
stjohnswarts 5y ago
That's not true. Chemicals are -everything-. Unless you think everything "artificial" is bad then I think you will be open to realizing just because something manufactured doesn't mean it's bad by default.
- TedShiller 5y ago
  The question is, do you want it in your tap water? If not, you also don't want it in the environment.

aembleton 5y ago

Bamboo grows so much quicker that even with glue it might be more sustainable than using other woods.

TedShiller 5y ago
What happens to glue when you throw it away?
- op00to 5y ago
  What happens to anything when you throw it away? It gets encapsulated in more garbage and stays there for basically ever.
  - didsomeonesay 5y ago
    capturing carbon?
  - david-gpu 5y ago
    Wood rots. It doesn't even take that long. Let's not pretend natural biodegradable materials are the same.
    - DFHippie 5y ago
      Not so much in a landfill.
- kleton 5y ago
  Phenol-formaldehyde thermoset breaks down into phenol and formaldehyde. It degrades a lot faster than polyolefins.
  - TedShiller 5y ago
    Does it "break down" sufficiently that you'd want the result in your tap water?
- Veen 5y ago
  PVA is biodegradable, I believe. But I suppose it depends which glue they use.

geoffmunn 5y ago

It really bothers me when people try and pass off bamboo-based fabrics as being natural. It's called rayon and it's about as synthetic as you can possibly get. For those who are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayon

kwhitefoot 5y ago
There is also an article specifically on bamboo textiles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_textile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_textile
jameshart 5y ago
Sure, but ‘synthetic’ is a weird word. At root it just means ‘made via synthesis’. Rayon is not made by synthesizing cellulose, though - it is made by extracting natural cellulose. You could say the fibers are synthesized - but cotton needs to go through a spinning process too. Where do you draw the line between ‘synthesis’ and ‘manufacturing’? Sure, for rayon the cellulose extraction process is chemical, unlike the physical process used to get cellulose fibers out of cotton, but the raw material is still natural, plant grown cellulose. There are plenty of things that are made by taking natural ingredients, shoving them in a vat of toxic chemicals to transform them, then taking them out to use, which are generally still considered ‘natural’ products: leather, bleached flour, pressure treated wood, dyed cotton…
- NortySpock 5y ago
  > Where do you draw the line between ‘synthesis’ and ‘manufacturing’? I assume the layperson will respond: "Synthesis uses chemicals, and manufacturing doesn't!" (visualizing a bandsaw or a punch-press machine) Of course manufacturing uses plenty of chemicals, but we don't always think about that when visualizing mechanical assembly processes.
- _jal 5y ago
  > Sure, but ‘synthetic’ is a weird word. Every word is weird if you think about it too long. At least in the US, this is pretty simple, even if it offends the sensibilities of category pedants. "Natural" fibers are cotton, wool, linen, etc. Processing is fine, so long as it isn't "too processed". It is "Synthetic" if it ends in '-on', or feels like plastic or rubber.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

This is a genuine question I've been wondering about, but isn't the glue basically the same as the lignin that holds the wood (and I assume bamboo) together naturally. If it's not, could it be? This applies to a lot of wood products like plywood and MDF not just bamboo. Looks like some people are investigating it: https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/using-lignin-as-a-sustainable-alternative-in-biobased-adhesives https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/using-lignin-as-a-sustainable-...

stdbrouw 5y ago
In wood fiber insulation, some factories do manage to use the wood's own lignin to keep the insulation batts together, though apparently it's harder to manage for very thick batts.

oblio 5y ago

Yeah, same thing with those transparent or hardened woods. It's wood + a ton of epoxy. Isn't epoxy made from fossil fuels, or am I completely off?

tyingq 5y ago
Epoxy uses BPA and ECH, both from fossil fuels, yes.
hwillis 5y ago
about 1/3rd correct. It is not made with epoxy[1]. Bamboo lumber is made with urea formaldehyde just like plywood. UF is made from CO2, ammonia, and methanol[2]. Methanol can come from plants or from fossil fuels. Ammonia uses 55% of global hydrogen, and that hydrogen comes from fossil fuels. Typically natural gas. There are also No-Added-Formaldehyde brands that used soy/PVA/other adhesives which can rely less or more fossil fuels (PVA is wood glue- vinyl based). Engineering bamboo (flooring doesn't always use UF) has ~5% wt. UF, so 20 kg of lumber requires ~.4 kg of ammonia. Using a methane feedstock that translates to ~.85 kg of CO2. 4% of the CO2 captured by the bamboo, for context. Ammonia can also be made from water, via electrolysis- .64 kg per 20 kg of bamboo. [1]: UF does not contain an epoxide group. Note also that epoxide is an incredibly generic type of chemical- all it means is that two pairs of radicals and an oxygen form a triangular bond. Epoxides can take all kinds of forms and be made from all kinds of stuff. For instance Epichlorohydrin is used to make some of the most common epoxy resins and is produced from glycerol, which comes from plant/animal sources generally. Not all of it, but most of it. [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/urea-formaldehyde-resins https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemical-engineering/ur...

i_am_proteus 5y ago

Glues were made from animals for centuries and are animal glue is still phenomenal for a number of woodworking applications. It's also much more expensive than synthetic glue. This does not mean that a glued lumber product is necessarily unnatural or unsustainable, but rather that the price may end up being higher, and the properties different, when using a natural glue.

eropple 5y ago
Totally right, but one thing I learned recently - hide glue isn't that much more expensive than the same manufacturers' PVA glues. (For folks who aren't familiar, though, animal glues aren't really substitutable for things like plywood; the ability to undo a hide glue joint is valuable in furnituremaking but not in plywood composition.)
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  And absolutely key in instrument making/repair. Hoof glue might be better for ply.
  - eropple 5y ago
    That makes sense. You're talking about a lot of glue for one panel, though, and at that point I would be worried about costing (and still more worried about delamination than with PVA). Plywood is weird when you think about it.

jgilias 5y ago

That's very absolutist thinking. Just because some solution doesn't solve all the problems outright doesn't mean that it's totally useless. What's the baseline? Using bamboo plywood thing instead of normal plywood? What's the end-goal? Increasing carbon sequestration when building stuff? Reducing ground water pollution? Something else? Where is the bamboo lumber used? How far is it shipped? For what it's used? Et cetera. Notice though that the article doesn't talk about sustainability, ecology, or being natural at all. It just shows how bamboo lumber is made. Which is interesting in its own right.

ksec 5y ago
>That's very absolutist thinking. The world, for some strange reason is dominated by absolutist thinking. It is part of the reason why we dont compromise any more. And it is a worrying trend.

snarf21 5y ago

Sure but so what. It is a question of how sustainable. Cutting 2x4s from pine trees still use a lot of non-sustainable energy sources. Saws burn gas and so do the trucks of the people who cut them down, so do the trucks that hall the logs, so do the mills that cut them, and so on and so on. There are always more externalities we don't consider. To me, the question is whether bamboo worse than other composite wood products. Does it store more carbon? Does it store the same carbon but more quickly? Can it grow using less land? Does it last longer than what would be used instead? If it is at least neutral on all the other questions, does it have other properties that make it preferable?

hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago

Not sustainable or cost effective. Look at the amount of labor and processing it takes to make one sheet of plywood! By comparison, plywood manufacture is a simple process. Entire logs are shaved into veneer sheets, rough cut, laminated together then finish cut. 302 Euros for a 4x8x3/4 sheet of 5-ply plywood that's inferior in most ways to hardwood plywood is crazy. By comparison, the same sheet of hardwood A-B grade plywood would run somewhere between $40-$80 a sheet. Trees are a great sustainable and renewable resource, they just take longer to grow.

JAlexoid 5y ago
Please note that this is not automated yet. I bet that automation could make bamboo plywood cheaper than hardwood plywood... with the same level of quality. I mean... Some species are ready to harvest in 90 days(not sure if those are applicable, though). But typical hardwood is decades of growth time to harvest.

Enginerrrd 5y ago

You seem to imply that it's a given that glue is not sustainable. Is that the case?

stjohnswarts 5y ago

That's not true. Chemicals are -everything-. Unless you think everything "artificial" is bad then I think you will be open to realizing just because something manufactured doesn't mean it's bad by default.

TedShiller 5y ago
The question is, do you want it in your tap water? If not, you also don't want it in the environment.