In the face of plastic's mounting environmental peril, the quest for sustainable solutions is more urgent than ever. Enter bamboo: a versatile and eco-friendly alternative that's poised to revolutionize our approach to combating plastic pollution.

In Anji County of Zhejiang Province in east China, a biodegradable bag crafted from bamboo fiber is revolutionizing the way locals shop, offering a promising substitute for traditional plastic bags. Known as a "bamboo town" in China with more than 66,660 hectares of bamboo forests, Anji has been exploring the use of bamboo materials to replace existing plastic materials for several years.

The bamboo fiber bags, developed by a local tech enterprise, are produced by processing moso bamboo, a dominant species of timber bamboo native to China, into bamboo powder. The powder is then combined with resins and other materials using a winding technique, resulting in a fully biodegradable product. The bags naturally degrade within six months, achieving a degradation rate of over 93 percent, and are now being mass-produced.

These bags have now been widely adopted across Anji farmers' markets and other shopping venues with high foot traffic.

A suitable substitute

As these bamboo fiber bags are currently more expensive than ordinary plastic bags, the local government has provided subsidies to offset the higher cost.

"A regular plastic bag costs 0.1 yuan ($0.014), while this bamboo bag costs slightly more at 0.2 yuan," local resident Wu Ying told newspaper Huzhou Daily. "However, with subsidies covering half the cost, the price is comparable to that of regular plastic bags. Plus, it contributes to environmental protection."

Rich in bamboo resources, China in 2022 launched the Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic Initiative in collaboration with the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization.

Last November, China rolled out a three-year action plan to address climate change and reduce pollution by substituting plastic products with bamboo alternatives. By 2025, the initiative aims to enhance the quality, diversity, scale and profitability of bamboo substitutes.

Anji is home to over 900 bamboo product enterprises, encompassing the entire production chain from raw bamboo processing to the manufacturing of assorted bamboo products. Among these, several companies are at the forefront of the Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic Initiative.

Established in 2005, BambooMake Co. Ltd., like most local bamboo enterprises in Anji, initially focused on primary raw bamboo processing. When Liang Fenghui took over the company's leadership from his father in 2014, he recognized the pressing need for a transformative approach to production.

"At that time, our main products were primarily processed items like bamboo poles and fences, which offered low added value and low profit margins. Coupled with shifts in the market environment, stricter environmental regulations and rising labor costs, the company had to manage a host of operational challenges," he told China News Service. This realization motivated him to prioritize environmental sustainability as a pathway for development.

Driven by in-house research and development (R&D), the company introduced new products such as bamboo straws, bamboo storage boxes and bamboo toothbrushes. "Now, our products are environmentally friendly, and our production methods are more sustainable. Our self-developed equipment has increased the raw material utilization rate by at least 20 percent," he said.

Today, the company's annual output value has surpassed 100 million yuan ($13.8 million).

Anji manufactures over 10,000 types of disposable bamboo products, with the annual output value of the bamboo industry exceeding 20 billion yuan ($2.75 billion). This success symbolizes a dual victory: revitalizing the bamboo industry and tackling plastic pollution.

Other major bamboo-producing regions in China are also advancing rapidly. In Yichun, Jiangxi Province, Lin Wei, a research and development manager at a local company, has been pioneering the use of bamboo in tech-related products, developing items such as bamboo keyboards, USB drives, mice and calculators.

"The initial version of the bamboo keyboard only had a bamboo frame, while the keycaps were still made of plastic. Our R&D team went through more than 1,000 prototypes before finally engineering a machine specifically designed to produce bamboo keycaps," Lin Wei told China Central Television.

Encouraged by the success of the bamboo keyboard, Lin and his team continued to innovate, developing over 80 varieties of bamboo products, including bamboo mice and calculators.

"Since the Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic Initiative was launched in 2022, our local government has offered numerous incentives and increased support for bamboo processing enterprises," Lin said. "We are seeing great potential in this market."

Cheaper by the dozen?

Despite significant advancements in the research and application of bamboo products, a critical issue remains before widespread promotion and use can be achieved: the cost.

At the 16th China Yiwu International Forest Products Fair last November, the Bamboo as a Substitute for Plastic Initiative exhibition area drew around 130 companies from provinces such as Zhejiang, Fujian and Sichuan provinces. The exhibition attracted domestic and international customers, yet many potential buyers expressed concerns about the high cost of bamboo products—compared with their plastic counterparts. For instance, a bamboo spoon currently costs 10 times more than its plastic counterpart.

"The initiative presents a vast market opportunity, yet bamboo products currently make up less than 1 percent of the market share in replacements for plastic products, with cost being the primary barrier," Cai Wei, Executive Director of the China Bamboo Industry Association, told China News Service.

The relatively high cost of harvesting bamboo, coupled with high processing costs, escalates costs at every stage, Cai said.

In response, Anji is actively seeking ways to balance ecological and economic benefits. For example, in transporting raw bamboo, companies in the county have started to pilot the use of drones.

"In a bamboo forest covering roughly 0.7 hectares, traditional manual harvesting methods would require at least eight to 10 workers. The combined cost of labor and transportation results in the high raw material cost of bamboo products," Zhong Weirong, an official with the Anji County Forestry Bureau, told Guangming Daily newspaper. "Drone transportation is still in its experimental stage, but if it can be scaled up, it could significantly reduce costs."

In October 2023, the China National Academy of Bamboo Industry was established in Anji to conduct experiments. "All our projects must have an industrialization basis," Zhang Yahui, then the academy's president, told Guangming Daily. "By integrating production, education and research, we aim to address the current industry challenges of high harvesting costs and poor scale efficiency."

Local enterprises are collaborating with the academy to develop a disposable bamboo Computer Numerical Control (CNC) precision cutting machine that has already gone into production, reducing material waste and lowering costs.

CNC precision machining is a process using computer programs to create products with exact measurements.

"Local enterprises have also established partnerships with experts from the Chinese Academy of Forestry and the Zhejiang Provincial Academy of Forestry. A batch of new projects is being incubated," Zhang said. BR

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon

Comments to yuanyuan@cicgamericas.com