Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Zero waste, the Bamboo plant


 Bamboo, the versatile plant, the future to zero waste?   Good for building , food, containers, and Nappies?

 The baskets you eat the morsels of delicate dim sum is made of bamboo.
 Many natives in Sarawak cook their rice in Bamboo tubes.

 The Kunming lantern from China, the franwork of the lantern is made of bamboo.

 Baby bamboo nappies are economical, the liner inside dries easily. They are soft to touch. My sister tells me that they are much better than the disposible one.
When my second daughter graduated from Kindy, her class performed using the Angklung. Iy must have been easily, to get a group of 30 kids to play.  Angklung is a bamboo musical instrument native to Sundanese people of West Java. It is made out of bamboo tubes attached to a bamboo frame. The tubes are carved so that they have a distinctive resonant pitch when being vibrated. Each angklung only plays one note.

During the lunar calender, 5th of May, the Chinese make a dumpling, Zhung, wrapped with bamboo leaves.

 My mum used to do this, now my sis E does it. My Aunt says E is so hard working. She dried the bamboo shoots, you need to rehydrate them and they taste delicious. Once, whilst Mum was alive, she sent a pack to me in New Zealand. You can see my tears when I opened the pack. Tears of nostalgia.
 In another post, I wrote this is an old fashion Chinese pillow. used for centuries because it if firm, and cooling in summer.
 My ancestral home in the country in Canton China, My oldest Sis R went to visit with my Dad. Nothing of the bamboo is wasted. The big tubes are sold to factories. The smaller tubes, the women at home cut them into smaller sticks, bundled together and sold to a joss stick factory. I can imagine the joss sticks my uncle Kong Sen Shui, mum's brother,  uses for the daily ancestor worship ritual could well come from my Dad's family.
 This is a kind of bamboo, I may be the one similar to my primary school where my Aunty and her friends came to collect the little leaves to brew for Chinese medicine. This is her home.



Let's dance, mind your legs, up in Mulu caves, I wasn't brave to do this. They don't have ACC, accident compensation in Sarawak.



It was a "Zero-waste" Waitangi Day festival. Ngarimu of the Ngati Whatua marae and his leaders opened us his marae for us to enjoy the hospitality of his people before we set out to be "Zero-waste" educator. For many years, I help the Ngati Whatua people at Bastion point during waitangi day in their rubbish  zero waste. The chief said, you ate our food, you slept in our marae. now you are whanau/ family and a Maori. I went back to school and told the kids, they lol. A Chinese Maori.
When Small footprint asked me to part take this zero waste project, I thought I will do one on bamboo. Bamboo has been in my Dad's family for many many years. My Great grand pa then took it with him when he came to Borneo in 1907. Bamboo is an eco-friendly material which grows naturally without the need for chemical pesticides or fertilisers. So the bamboo shoot products you eat are organic.
It has a very short growth cycle, is easily cultivated and is totally bio-degradable. Grandpa wove basket, chicken cages, my brother in law Kallang whilst a school principal made furniture from bamboo.

Thus making bamboo nappies one of the worlds most eco friendly nappies and the best against babies/toddlers skin. They are beautiful to touch.
THE FABRIC IS: Absorbent Eco-friendly Soft like silk Naturally Anti-bacterial Fantastic for babies with sensative skin
THE NAPPY IS DESIGNED TO: Fit any shaped baby Out perform disposables Give optimum absorbency Be a super slim fitting nappy Grow with your baby (Birth to Toddler option)




http://ourworldtuesdaymeme.blogspot.com/
http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com



10 comments:

Unknown said...

What a wonderful post! Thank you so much for talking a bit about bamboo and how it helps us to reduce waste. It really is a very special material ... renewable, sustainable, repels odors and mildew, is tough and long-lasting. It's somewhat of a miracle fiber. :-) I've shared a link to this post on the Zero Waste Facebook page and also the blog. Thanks so much for joining the event and spreading the word about reducing landfill waste!

Plumrose Lane said...

Found you through my sweet friend above ~ love your posting and all the different ways bamboo is used. We have many different products in our own home that are made of bamboo, from the dim sum steamer you mentioned to our cutting boards for chopping and even our hand/dish towels. Bamboo truly is a wonderfully versatile plant and I hope countries use it more!
Thanks,
♥Sharon

Susan Demeter said...

Excellent write-up my friend!

rae-ann said...

wonderful post - thank you so much for sharing your unique perspective. I love how much knowledge and experience you've shared about bamboo. Enjoy the rest of zero waste week!

Rae (aka mrs green from myzerowaste.com)

Gattina said...

That's just amazing what all can be done with bamboo !

joy said...

Wow, now I learned more where people can use bamboos leaves, and the trunk:)

Autumn Belle said...

I have a bamboo plant in my garden. It has been with me since the day I started gardening in my new home. I have never watered or fertilized it, only trim regularly. The leaves can be used as mulch, the stems as stakes for my vines or as a stirrer. The yum-yum shade under my bamboo tree is my 'laboratory' for my plant experiments and a quarantine area cum ICU for my sickly plants. It takes so little but gives so much.

Autumn Belle said...

By the way, how do you make bamboo nappies?

Joyful said...

I enjoyed this post as I love bamboo. I once had a plant in my garden and it grew very well but we pulled it out because it was starting to take over my small plot. I like all things made of bamboo and wear bamboo socks. For my nephew's recent wedding, I gave, among other things, a bamboo cutting board and bamboo salad spoons.

Carletta said...

I love to see strands of bamboo growing. There are some kinds that can be grown here.
Thanks for all your informative words.