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The Downside of Regular Bamboo Flooring Bamboo flooring has been touted as one of the best flooring options available. It is affordable, a great option for saving the environment, harder than other hardwood floorings, and as aesthetic as they come. All of these have some truth to them, but unfortunately, they is also another side to the coin. [VIEW ARTICLE]Comments RSS Feed For This Article: 
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Subject: Verifying the downsides of regular bamboo flooring
Hi Diego,
I feel qualifications are necessary on a number of your statements about bamboo & bamboo flooring.
Formaldehyde use: Whilst your statements are generally true, you should add that other practical formaldehyde free glue options are often more poisonous to the factory workers - the main reason why a wholesale switch away from formaldehyde glues has not taken place. Also, most quality certified bamboo manufacturers products test way below the European E1 standard and other international & local standard requirements for formaldehyde emissions. Many bamboo floors test way below the formaldehyde emissions of regular furniture & pressed boards (often used for cupboards, etc) found in the average home.
"Hardwood forests are being replaced by bamboo": Not entirely true, and almost certainly not when considering the bamboo mostly used in the production of bamboo flooring. In the late 1990’s the Chinese government reformed their forestry policies, largely putting paid to many of the bad practices.
Poorly paid Chinese workers: Once again, not necessarily true. Whilst there are abuses (not only in China I might add), many bamboo factories in China are top class, exceeding the standards set in many western factories. If the suppliers factory is a member of INBAR, your statement is certainly not true.
"Regular bamboo flooring is actually fairly soft"; Let me rephrase that statement to reflect something much closer to the facts. "Laminated solid bamboo flooring that is manufactured from immature bamboo or a bamboo species not ideally suited to flooring production can be fairly soft". These products are generally cheaper as a result.
Quality manufacturers produce "regular" bamboo flooring with a hardness performance similar to Red Oak - that is certainly not "fairly soft".
"... both the pros and cons of bamboo flooring"; Whilst I agree with this statement, in the context of this article, it should rather be along the lines of: "... both the pros and cons of bamboo flooring SUPPLIERS" as not all suppliers supply the same quality products.