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UPDATE: #abambooproject article is being picked up by blogs,like: Made in the USA Challenge!! and our fan base is growing. We have also loaded the new a bamboo project introduction video to this page. To view a more comprehensive video of the project video; please visit our project media page or our You Tube Channel.
TY for your growing support of A Bamboo Project!
Help fund a 2 acre parcel of land, greenhouse, laboratory, and processing center for research and development of cleaner processing methods, and potential uses for bamboo! You’ll get some really cool bamboo products for doing it and feel GREAT about yourself. You can think of it as an investment to lower the price of bamboo products, while helping the environment and LOCAL businesses providing the perks.
Lower the PRICE of Bamboo products?
YES lower the price. Not to mention the environmental impact a container ship has releasing enough CO2 for 50 million cars. Here is the proof.. A U.S. company pays $.50-$1.50 for a bamboo towel (see alibaba.com) you pay $36.00 from a U.S. retailer
WHY the HUGE markup? Well there are a lot of people to be paid in your products journey. Shipping is anywhere from $3,000-$6,000 dollars. Then there are customs, brokers, warehousing, and salesmen that all need to make money resulting in the $36.00 towel. If bamboo is sourced here, the “middlemen” and transportation affects are WIPED OUT. As a benefit you will also be saving our environment, creating jobs, and find additional uses for this wonder plant. After considering all the different factors when ordering from China; the United States can afford to be competitive.
This proof of concept is all that is needed to acquire second round grants and funding already committed to the project. You will help us become a local supplier to U.S. companies already producing bamboo flooring, clothing, skateboards, surfboards, diapers, and other products! You are lowering the price you pay for bamboo, ensure it is harvested RESPONSIBLY, move jobs back to the U.S. that already exist in China and UNLOCK the potential for bamboo bio fuels, bio mass, medicines, bio char, bio plastics and other products identified so far.
From there we go to a lease/purchase model of parcels of land with existing bamboo growing, and take advantage of the requests to ‘clear bamboo’ from private and public lands. WHile starting bamboo farms from scratch. We immediately service U.S. companies manufacturing bamboo products. If they aren’t that fast, we manufacture wood pellets for use as bio mass in the EU and this project is profitable from the start. All that is missing is the front end investment. All that is missing is YOUR help and commitment to green.
WHY??
The U.S. currently has a tremendous imbalance of trade even as we import over 50 million dollars a year worth of bamboo shoots, poles, furniture, flooring, and other products.
We also have: massive unemployment, many abandoned small farms, overburdened landfills, organic waste disposal issues, receding water tables and diminishing water quality, severe soil erosion, material shortfalls, inequitable land distribution, worsening air pollution, etc.
Americans Need Jobs. Building a domestic bamboo industry from the ground up creates jobs. Cleaner, greener, and with the promise of cleaning up our soil, air and water. That's Bamboo.
The only roadblock is the political support and front end investment. Through the bamboo project, our goal is with your help, we will begin the bamboo industry here and now through the acquisition of land already growing Bamboo, setup of a bamboo processing center, and the setup of a bamboo research and development center.
Why Bamboo??
Bamboo is extremely versatile and already has made an impact worldwide. This plant is truly green. This plant is totally sustainable. This plant has a use in every industry. Popularity is growing every year. Imagine a plant growing up to 100 feet tall, being cut down and replenishing itself in 45 days.
I realize this is a spectacular claim. I know many will tell me the jury is still out. However, let us look at the facts:
- Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet. Bamboo can grow up to 2 feet per day and over 90 feet tall in one season.
- Bamboo sequesters 35% more Co2 than trees.
- Bamboo requires only one third of the water than cotton does. There is much less carbon associated with growing bamboo such as operating tractors in harvesting and maintenance than cotton. Unless American cotton can be genetically engineered to plant and pick itself, the cotton industry in America faces a dismal future.
- Bamboo has no natural pests. Therefore, NO PESTICIDES.
- Bamboo filters soil of contaminants and prevents soil erosion. Something we can use in the Gulf region prone to oil spills and still reeling from the effects of the BP Oil Spill.
- Bamboo is flexible. It can be used in virtually any application such as bike frames, domes, and other products.
- Bamboo is leterally stronger than steel and more durable than wood. It can be used as a composite, structural beams, flooring, scaffolding, supports, housing, car frames, and concrete reinforcement.
- Bamboo is being used for clothing. Bamboo is soft, and anti-bacterial, it acts like a sponge whisking perspiration away from the skin.
- Over 1.5 BILLION people use bamboo worldwide. Trade is worth over 5 billion per year and rising.
- The United States is the LARGEST IMPORTER of Bamboo.
Young seedlings cannot be imported into the United States unless they remain in quarantine for one year. These rules have prevented the supply of young plants to establish bamboo forests. This plant only flowers every 30 to 120 years, depending on the species. Companies like Booshoot in Seattle, Washington have conquered this obstacle by inventing new ways to propagate bamboo. These methods have proved to be the foundation of the Bamboo industry in the United States via projects like this and others.
Today with the renewed push towards greener solutions, bamboo is once again being considered. And with good reason- It is also growing in population as more consumers become eco-conscious.
But Bamboo has received some bad press.
Some of the methods used to breakdown bamboo to fiber are dirty. VERY chemically toxic. This is not the ONLY method used. Mechanically crushing the bamboo is also an option and we have another option. Steam.
Bamboo has also been accused of being an intrusive plant. There are 2 types of bamboo, runners and clumpers. Clumping bamboo does not spread. Running bamboo can be easily controlled via conventional methods or simple mad made divisions.
Bamboo can transform abandoned lands into working farms, and the current demand for bamboo is endless. Bamboo as an industry can create tons of thousands of jobs here in the U.S.
We know this for a fact.
These jobs exist in China serving OUR DEMAND. I mean that there are tens of thousands of workers in China and other countries whose daily work is harvesting or producing bamboo products for the United States market. Doesn’t this seem foolish to you? You haven’t even heard the punch line yet. This bamboo is being obtained from OVER harvested bamboo plantations. The consequences of this for the China environment are disastrous.
From harvesting to production, bamboo creates jobs in industries across the board in the U.S.
Retrofitting cotton harvesting equipment is easy and inexpensive. Everyone knows farmers must diversify. Bamboo as a crop has a market, and produces yields many times over that of current agriculture. It also shares a multi-industry demand, so bamboo is not dependent on one customer. While bamboo is a food, it does not compete as a food stock in the U.S. It is a safe crop.
Today Bamboo is used in a variety of products at the same time what is known about bamboo and its true potential is in its infancy.
Our goal is to help this process along and quickly. We will achieve bamboo enlightenment through a very simple business model.
Bamboo library: We have been compiling information on everything Bamboo, we have posted 10% on the internet so far. This library is already the largest collection of bamboo related materials and will contibute to grow for ALL to use. Please see #abambooproject.
We have studied and implemented these findings in many of our production and agriculture plans. We have created new systems, closed loop manufacturing systems, and clean breakdown processes utilizing steam.
We can't wait to uncover more.
Bamboo acquisition: in the southern U.S. bamboo grows wild. Public lands, and private land owners are willing to give us this timber. They call, we haul type of scenario. Or in some cases, we may lease or purchase the land. Remember, bamboo is renewable. It can replenish itself in as little as 45 days so our supply chain is readily available.
From there the bamboo is hauled to our processing center. Our processing center is envisioned at 5,000 sq. ft. to begin with, Expanding as our bamboo efforts grow.
In order to support growth we will begin manufacturing products that are already in demand and involve the least amount of handling. For example:
Biomass: Demand for biomass, most commonly in the form of wood pellets that can easily be transported, has leapt since the EU in 2007 set its 2020 climate goals.
Fiber or Pulp: Used by the paper industry to offset their demand on forests, this use of bamboo is gaining rapid attention.
Wood for consumer products: Flooring, skateboards, kitchen utensils, surfboards, furniture and other items. All are made with bamboo and imported every day. We can supply these companies manufacturing these products in the U.S. For those companies that import these products are making green claims, the pressure will mount not only by the consumer questioning their greenness, but as the cost of transportation continues to rise, domestically sourced bamboo will become more cost efficient.
That equals more factories and MORE JOBS!
It’s important to emphasize what I just explained…Through locally sourcing our own materials and selling the bamboo to the industries requiring the least amount of manufacturing makes this project profitable from the start.
This finances the development of new “open source” methods and technologies and thus begins the explosion of bamboo into a U.S. industry. Additionally, we have second round financing ready once the pilot project is done. That's where we need YOUR help. From the popularity of the issue gaining more political support to every dollar raised you are bringing real awareness to the US acgriculture industry which is suffering due to drought, and bad political policy. This puts farmers to work, can reverse effects of global warming, and supply our needs SUSTAINABLY.
Research and Development Center will consist of 2 acres of land, one small building, and a greenhouse. It is where the breakthroughs will occur, where the results of those breakthroughs will be shared with universities and industry.
Our research will include:
- Bamboo pyrolysis. (Turning bamboo into an energy source by basically baking it similar to how a clay pot is made.)
- Bamboo Charcoal as a filter for industrial and home application. Power plants and coal factories are already considering bamboo charcoal as a method of capturing pollutants being emitted.
- Bamboo fibers. These fibers are already being currently used as textiles used in clothes, and linens, as fiber for toilet tissue, paper, and various other paper products as ‘pulp’.
- Bamboo processing. Bamboo is a very heavy and woody plant. We have pioneered methods in clean processing utilizing stream, but there are others that show the promise of a more efficient system of processing. Replicating the digestive system of the Panda is one. Recently, universities started trying to identify the digestive enzyme that processes bamboo in pandas. Bamboo is 90 percent of a panda’s diet.
- Bamboo as a construction material. There are several types of structural beams, plywood, flooring, doors and other building products made of bamboo on the market. However, in many respects these materials are higher priced than their wood counterparts. We want to see the products affordable by all.
While Bamboo is growing very popular in the U.S. it is still a somewhat segmented and niche following. Your help will bring the issue mainstream, with every job created in the U.S. bamboo proves itself. We hope and believe a good idea has merit just because people like you deem it worthy. We believe you will see that merit in this wonderplant. Please visit Abambooproject for much more information and if you have ANY questions please contact me.
The Perks:
This was a perplexing problem. What to offer, then it hit us.. What better way to show you the benefits of bamboo and a local economy than offering Bamboo products from local resources!?!
ALL PERK PACKAGES INCLUDE: A thank you and your name on the bamboo Library wall. Your name included in the Bamboo Industry for the U.S. Registry. This registry will be utilized in many petition and campaign pushes for tax incentives, and subsidies to further provide incentives for farmers and offset the initial losses during first planting to harvest.
Right to left: Do The BOO T-shirt/Sweatshirt, Bamboozing wine accessory kit, Boo Book Bamboo Notebook, Bamboo IPad case, Foudner Package entrance wall. 
L. Bamboo iZen bluetooth bamboo keyboard, R. Imagine Bamboo pendant
We look forward to hearing from you. With every share, every dollar, every like or tweet you are helping us get the bamboo industry off the ground in the United States, and making a big difference on the environment. As our research continues, and already existing products are a lower cost, the popularity of Bamboo will continue to grow, and the demand will be met by local growers, made in U.S. factories, and help America toward a greener future.
Thank for checking out #A Bamboo Project!
Team on This Campaign:
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Eric StevensFounder
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