Environmental benefit of utilizing bamboo material based on life cycle assessment

Abstract

This study focuses on the production chains that produce plybamboo for use. The production chains were investigated using a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, which takes into account all of the input and output flows occurring along the production chain. The results show that the major processing type of plybamboo production is mechanical processing. The characterization of various materials demonstrates that bleached glue-laminated bamboo boards exert the greatest potential environmental impact in terms of power consumption during the three-layer lamination process; in particular, the category with the highest environmental impact is respiratory inorganics. Therefore, energy consumption and productivity are the key factors of the potential environmental impact. The comparison of the two treatment types revealed that the bleached glue-laminated bamboo boards have a lower environmental impact in all four categories than their heat-treated counterparts. The impact of the processing mainly originates from the steps of hot pressing, drying and using chemicals. The comparative results show that plybamboo has a low environmental impact, but the impact is higher than that of concrete. Concerning the carbon storage of plybamboo, using plybamboo has environmental benefits in the impact categories of climate change and global warming. Although plybamboo has a low impact in the impact categories of climate change and global warming, it has a high impact in other impact categories. Therefore, policy makers should consider the highest impact of the aforementioned processing steps and should use energy-saving and high productivity equipment to reduce the environmental impact.