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Comment by cmiller1 | Hacker News Reader

I have engineered bamboo "wood" flooring that I like a lot and after a few years haven't noticed any cracking or warping; perhaps it went through more extensive treatment processes?

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Flooring - first it's cut into strips, then boiled in a solution to remove the starchy compounds, then dried and pressed, then planed down for a lamination process, laminated (using typically more epoxy than other lumber-based laminates), then cut into the final form for the end user. Bamboo is a grass, and it's hollow - it neither looks nor handles like real lumber. It's often touted as a "greener" alternative to lumber - given the amount of energy and additives I'm not so sure this is the case: I would love to see someone actually do an analysis of this.

I would love to see a website where I could just enter two alternatives and get the greener one. I find it hard to make any decision these days. Should I buy tomatoes in a can a paper+plastic container? Fish sauce from Thailand in a glass or plastic bottle? Should I buy a small item in a nearby shop or drive somewhere a buy bigger packs. Someone should solve it for me.

This is a hard problem though, there are so many variables. For example, maybe the one that is more eco-friendly to produce is less durable and in the example of flooring which one is more green could depend on how many people a day you have walking on it and what they weigh.

Also economies of scale have an impact too. An expensive eco-friendly product might be produced in smaller numbers causing more waste through the supply chain.

This is all speculation -- but products made a scale are often made with high efficiency.

What surely works is when we ask big corporations to do the right thing. Or if we managed to tax environmental impact.

1) buy as little as possible - buy used if possible.

2) buy as cheap as possible.

3) invest your money in green initiatives.

That way I don't think you'll go all wrong.

Wouldn't you then get stuck in a local maxima?

Your tomato example probably depends on the time of year, your location, the farm. And even then how are you storing it? Fridge? Cupboard? So probably not generally answerable.

I know Tesco (a uk supermarket) started labelling with embodied CO2, but gave up.

I do agree with you though. Even some marketing regs, so when someone claims something is greener, it actually is.

Well, for one thing, it grows incredibly fast, and spreads like a weed (some types, anyway).

It's like building a wooden strip canoe - by the time you're finished with the sanding, fiberglass, resin, etc. it's more of a fiberglass canoe that looks like wooden strips.

"engineered" is the key word here. I too have bamboo flooring. When cutting pieces to fit I noticed a distinct epoxy/chemical smell foreign to what I'd encountered when cutting standard red oak flooring.

The epoxy chips easily if you drop anything heavy and pointed on it.

It does look good and flexes if you don't glue it down and run an underlay.

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