With bamboo-based products on the rise, we wanted to see how they compared to their plastic and paper counterparts. We went to Taiwan and China for a behind-the-scenes look at how bamboo is turned into cups, lunchboxes, toilet paper, and cutlery — and figured out which of these products have the biggest impact on our environment.
For more on Lastic, visit www.lastico.com.
For more on Lastic, visit www.lastico.com.
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00:00 Demand for bamboo is growing.
00:05 Whether it's straws, spoons, or even toilet paper,
00:10 bamboo products are springing up on grocery shelves everywhere,
00:14 usually branded as a greener alternative to plastic and paper.
00:20 Some species of the fast-growing plant can sprout more than one foot per day.
00:25 But are bamboo products really good for the planet?
00:32 And how do they stack up against the paper and plastic competition?
00:38 Over the centuries, people have used bamboo to build houses,
00:42 make paper, and even cook into food.
00:46 Today, it's still often used as scaffolding in places like Hong Kong,
00:51 using it to make disposable items like cups and toilet paper is a much newer concept.
00:57 And it's on the rise.
01:00 Bamboo forests in China, the world's top supplier, have more than tripled in size since 1950.
01:06 And the U.S. and India are two of the top buyers.
01:12 Bamboo thrives on the island of Taiwan, too, in forests like this one.
01:18 It's one of the only food contact safe, approved bamboo plantations in Taiwan.
01:23 That's where a Taiwanese company called Lastic gets its bamboo.
01:28 After sawing down each stalk, harvesters slice off the small branches and leaves.
01:34 Those stalks will later become foodware, like straws and lunchboxes.
01:39 The founder used to work as an importer of packaged foods
01:42 and felt he was adding to the world's plastic problems.
01:45 We have thousands of packaged goods, and 60 to 70% of them are made of plastic.
01:52 At the production site, the team slices open a bundle.
01:57 Most of the workers here are part of a different operation that makes bamboo skewers for food.
02:05 Lastic partners with them to use some of their leftover scraps.
02:09 Inside, a worker cuts the stalks into segments, removing these tough joints called nodes.
02:16 The smaller chunks travel through this device, which cuts them in half and sorts them by size.
02:21 The team soaps bundles of these segments in water for a couple hours.
02:26 A worker feeds the softened pieces into a machine that cuts out the skewer shapes.
02:34 Lastic uses these leftover strands called offcuts.
02:38 Some of them will serve as fuel for the next step.
02:42 They're loaded into a bucket with pellets that are also made of bamboo.
02:49 All of it powers a machine that dries the stringy offcuts and grinds them up.
02:56 Next, the bagged bamboo powder will be mixed with other ingredients.
03:01 Lastic wouldn't show us that part, but the recipe includes cornstarch and minerals.
03:06 There's also something the founders call a bioadhesive.
03:10 It's technically a biodegradable plastic, and it's made from plants instead of fossil fuels.
03:16 It helps hold bamboo fibers together and makes them moldable like plastic goods.
03:21 Lastic has about 30 different formulas which can take nearly any shape, including straws.
03:27 This machine can make 300 of them a minute.
03:30 The company also makes lunchboxes.
03:33 A sheet of the mixture is warmed up, then vacuum pressure sucks it into shape.
03:38 At another facility, machines press Lastic's formula into spoons, forks, and other cutlery.
03:46 The final products are packaged and ready to be shipped out.
03:51 For now, the team wraps the straw bundles in plastic, but they're working on an alternative.
03:56 Eventually, all of our packaging will be this material, but we haven't been able to coin-mass produce a bag yet.
04:04 Lastic's customers include coffee shops, packaging companies, and straw makers.
04:09 Some buy the finished goods. Others buy the bamboo mixture and make the goods themselves.
04:14 The idea is that manufacturers can easily switch from plastic to Lastic.
04:19 We can just use it in the same machinery, just switching some of the temperature settings on the machines, and we can make the exact same product.
04:26 The company says all products made from its material can break down in nature.
04:43 That's a key detail. Many "compostable" plastics only break down at industrial compost facilities, under very specific temperature and moisture conditions.
04:55 Our product, you don't need any special machinery. It decomposes in a natural environment quite rapidly.
05:03 But don't just take the company's word for it. It has seven different certifications backing this up,
05:09 including one of the world's strictest tests for compostability called AS5810.
05:16 To hit that standard, you have to prove that the product biodegrades in under 180 days in a home compost bin.
05:24 And that it's non-toxic, even to worms living in the soil.
05:30 The faster a product breaks down in nature, the less time it has to harm or entangle an animal.
05:36 But there's more to environmental impact than biodegradability, like energy usage.
05:43 Plastic Shared A study showing its production emissions aren't that different from regular plastic, but said it's just a rough estimate.
05:50 Other research looked at more than 100 different bamboo products and found most of them had lower emissions than similar items made of other materials, including plastic.
06:00 That's mainly because the bamboo items took less energy to make.
06:04 One more complication. The recipes for bamboo plastic vary widely and sometimes might even be unsafe.
06:12 In 2022, the European Union cracked down on the illegal import of food containers made of bamboo and plastic,
06:19 saying they could leak harmful chemicals in risky amounts, especially when heated.
06:25 The main issue isn't bamboo, but mixing it with a type of resin called melamine, which plastic does not use.
06:32 Still, for now, the company can't sell products with bamboo in them in Europe.
06:37 Meanwhile, eating out of regular old plastic containers might have health impacts, too.
06:42 There's evidence it can mess with people's hormones and fertility.
06:46 So long as bamboo products are safety-tested and truly biodegradable, there's a good chance they're a better option than plastic.
06:53 But how do they stack up against paper products?
06:57 Unlike trees, bamboo can regrow from its roots after it's cut down, without replanting.
07:03 And it can be harvested every few years, while pine trees take decades to mature.
07:09 An estimated two million trees are cut down to make toilet paper every day.
07:14 A company called Real Paper sources its bamboo from this forest in southwest China.
07:26 These stalks are at least two years old.
07:29 After the bamboo is cut down, the harvesting team sends it through a chipper.
07:34 From here, the chips head to a paper mill.
07:39 Inside these tanks, the chips are heated with a chemical mixture until they're soft and lighter in color.
07:46 The pulp is dried and compressed into sheets.
07:50 At another facility, they're turned into giant rolls of paper known as "parent rolls."
07:56 Machines wind the paper onto smaller cardboard tubes and slice them into the toilet paper rolls we know and love.
08:05 The process is basically the same for making standard toilet paper, except that standard tissue uses the pulp from trees instead of bamboo.
08:14 Major brands like Charmin and Cottonelle have gotten into hot water for sourcing tree pulp from Canada's boreal forest.
08:20 Sometimes called the "Amazon of the North," it's a massive carbon sink, and home to threatened species like caribou.
08:28 These major brands are using virgin forest fiber from globally important forests for a product we use for a few seconds and flush down the toilet.
08:40 The region is also home to over 600 communities of indigenous people.
08:44 Paper companies typically don't own forest land themselves. They get their wood from outside suppliers.
08:59 But toilet paper helps drive forest loss, regardless of who cuts the trees down.
09:05 So, can bamboo help?
09:09 Well, one report says the best option for toilet tissue isn't bamboo. It's recycled paper.
09:15 And no, that doesn't mean used toilet paper.
09:19 It's toilet paper that's made using paper that you throw in your recycling bin or that is coming from an office building.
09:28 It has one-third the carbon footprint.
09:31 But bamboo is the next best choice. It's better than using trees, but not quite as good as the 100% recycled stuff.
09:38 That's because bamboo forests are still an important part of local ecosystems.
09:43 If you're shopping for bamboo tissue, you can look for a seal from the Forest Stewardship Council.
09:48 They do help to ensure that some basic sustainability standards are met, as opposed to other certification systems that are not nearly as rigorous.
10:00 But here's the thing. There's more than one type of FSC certification. Look for FSC 100% if you want tissue made entirely from sustainably harvested bamboo.
10:12 Ultimately, even renewable resources have environmental impacts.
10:16 If sourced and used responsibly, bamboo has a lot of promise.
10:20 However, some of these eco-friendly products are relatively expensive.
10:26 At Walmart, one roll of real paper costs $1.67, compared to about $1.25 for a roll of Charmin.
10:34 But both an elastic bendy straw and a traditional plastic one cost less than a penny.
10:39 Meanwhile, research shows many consumers are willing to pay extra for more sustainable options.
10:45 Yet the team behind Lastik says it might take regulation to truly compete.
10:51 More and more, countries are looking into laws that hold polluting companies accountable, an approach called Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR.
10:59 The idea is to make plastic and paper "producers" pay for collecting and recycling their products.
11:06 That could lead to higher prices, making it easier to compete, or to major brands switching to more planet-friendly materials.
11:14 I think we need to push for EPR to make these large-scale consumers
11:22 willing to choose more environmentally friendly and responsible packaging materials.
11:29 [Music]