Plastics are an important part of our modern lives, with uses in packaging, construction, textiles, and more. However, with over 400 million tonnes of plastic waste generated annually, there have also been severe drawbacks to the world’s embrace of the material.

Over the last fifty years, billions of tonnes of plastics have ended up in landfills or been discarded in natural environments, wreaking havoc on terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Plastic waste leaches harmful chemicals into soils, contaminating farmland and compromising food security. In oceans, plastic waste accounts for 85% of all ocean waste,leading to declines in marine biodiversity and damaging aquatic ecosystems.

Plastics also contribute to climate change. Mainly produced by fossilfuels, greenhouse gases are emitted throughout the life cycle ofplastics. As plastics use and waste increase globally, these emissions are expected to double by 2060 if the world does not introduce new policies.

Bamboo grows across over 50 million hectares, most of which is in the Global South, and features many other advantages to plastics.

Bamboo is annually harvestable, maturing in three to four years. It is also biodegradable, capable of breaking down within two to six months with proper composting. Conversely, some plastics take hundreds of years to break down, degrading into microplastics with potentially harmful impacts.

Bamboo forests act like a giant carbon sink, efficiently sequestering more carbon than some tree species. On top of that, durable products made with bamboo lock in carbon for the product’s entire lifespan, unlike plastics which mostly rely on fossil fuels and energy-intensive processes.

Over 10,000 types of bamboo products have already been developed, from daily necessities to construction materials. The world is now waking up to the promise of bamboo as a critical tool for ushering in a biobased low-carbon economy and defeating the scourge of plastic pollution.