I don't doubt what you're saying, but I wonder why my bamboo ski poles don't crack. I have lots of them, and they've been used every winter for nearly forty years, from back when I bought them. They're as good as new, still. I bought all the stock of the last shop selling them at the time, in my student town, as I didn't want to use fiber or metal poles in the mountains (can't easily be fixed if they break, while bamboo poles can be fixed if they split, and, with some tape, can even be prevented from breaking in the first place).

Bamboo is anisotropic like timber, which means that expansion and contraction caused by drying or temperature variation will happen at different rates along the tangential, longitutional and radial axis. Crack happens when stress exceed the tensile strength of the material in one direction. Thus a long and thin object is less vulnerable to this type of failure as only one axis undergoes a significant change in size.

In addition, the bamboo ski poles may have been thoroughly dried by kiln heating and sealed with some type of resin or lacquer to prevent moisture ingress, especially if they were made to get wet.

I suspect you are correct in your assumptions in the last paragraph, at least about being kiln heated. That seems very likely. There is also a thin layer of something, could be resin or lacquer as you suggest. It is definitely not epoxy though (re. next poster)

The other poster was probably thinking about bamboo fibre-epoxy composite which is more like fibreglass.

I vaguely remember the sealant is not really food safe, which is why many bambio utensils still crack after a few years.

There are a few companies making new bamboo ski poles. Panda Poles and Soul Poles are two that I see regularly on the mountain.

I am sure they are treated differently? Just a guess, but maybe with an epoxy?

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Can you oil it to prevent this from happening? I have several Bamboo cutting boards that have lasted for years because I oil them frequently. I also do this with wooden spoons and other un-finished wood products.

I have a bamboo cutting board that I've been using for about 10 years and it's still as good as new. Perhaps it was treated specially, because I've never done anything special to care for it (and had no idea that might be necessary).

I also have some bamboo spoons and spatulas that get used almost daily and they have lasted for many years as well. I wash them in the dishwasher, which perhaps gives them the level of moisture needed to stay good.

That is the problem, bamboo stuff actually requires specific care in the US that it doesn't in Japan. I was going to buy some really nice bowls there, and my sister suggested I not do it because they would break in the US, but not in Japan. (with the equivalent care)

Your bamboo cutting board is likely made in a manner similar to bamboo flooring as outlined in the article - a lot of treatments to make it stable and usable.

If it needs around the same humidity levels as Japan, then bamboo might be good in places like Florida, Louisiana, and Houston at least.