Ok, so the Bamboo PC was just an eco promotion. A laptop version of the bamboo PC was released at the Hanover computer fair last March. The laptop features a laminated bamboo casing which surrounds a rather basic computer, that alone won’t make much of a dent in the amount of plastics around the world.

But it was a little demonstration of what can be done, and, if proof of bamboo’s versatility were required, consider it proven.

Bamboo is surely the only plant providing sources of food, building materials and woven fabrics. Even one of Edison’s original light bulbs had a bamboo filament. Due to bamboo being so strong and cheap, it has become a widely used product for scaffolding in parts of Asia. The bamboo fibres have extremely high tension and compression strength. Bamboo has almost the same tensile strength to weight ratio as steel, plus it has roughly twice as muhc compressive strength as concrete. And now there’s a bamboo laptop!

Products made of bamboo ticks most boxes for anyone buying green home furnishings. To start with, it’s hightly sustainable. There are a number of bamboo species that are able to grow over a metre each day. The locals that live near this amazing species of bamboo can cut down as much as they want and still have the same sized fores t at the end of the year as they had at the beginning. On the global warming sides of things, being a plant, any product made from bamboo contains a large amount of atmospheric carbon within it. However, the plastic equivalent to a bamboo products actually adds to the atmospheric carbon levels, rather than taking away!

Another point is that because bamboo is a plant source, there are many variations between two plants, these variations make it a difficult material to use in a mass production process. You can be pretty sure that a craftsman has produced any bamboo item you buy. If you choose to buy from a reputable source, you’ll also have the peace of mind that the craftsman has earned a fair wage from their work and not been exploited. Finally you’ll be sure that the product you buy hasn’t accumulated air miles in its journey from craftsman to your home.

With eco credentials as strong as these it’s amazing that bamboo products can also be very beautiful. Picture a skilfully made bamboo box, lovingly lacquered with 15 layers of natural shellac. All natural, and really lovely. Only the other day, I bought an amazingly crafted bamboo knife block and now I’m considering buying more bamboo kitchen accessories like fruit bowls. Stylish and ethical. Win.

So many things are now going green and it looks like the mobile phone is set to hit the market too.

If you appliances already have the energy star they are deemed to be green and of course you have the option of going green when it comes to the car thanks to the hybrid. When buying your next mobile though, will there be an option for somebody who wants to help to save the world?

Well unbelievably there is and it comes in the form of Samsung and Sprint teaming up. Unbelievably the new phone is made from corn and is made up by using 80% recyclable materials. You really have to question though, why hasn’t this been done before? Now that most people in the developed world own at least one mobile phone, it seems crazy why this sort of thing wasn’t released sooner!

To try and make you a greener person, the phone charger itself has the energy star on it and some of the applications for the phones are now put on there beforehand. The Discvoery Channel have pre-loaded apps onto there to help turn you into an even greater greener person. There also happens to be a glossary on there explaining things on climate changes.

This isn’t it for this phone, it is also a smartphone that has GPS, Web browsing and speech recognition. What this shows is that technology seems to be jumping ahead at a very alarming rate.

Of course it doesn’t just have to stop on the phone, you can buy so many different things for the home that are green and eco-friendly now whether that is eco kitchen accessories as well as bathroom accessories So whatever home furnishings you are looking to change there is always something out there for you to choose.In the future I wonder what else they might come up with. Technology is a wonderful thing, but where will it all end?