THE quest to fully commercialise Jamaica’s bamboo industry is making strides.

US-based investors have already expressed an interest in buying a kiln — an oven-like equipment that converts bamboo into charcoal — to be used by local communities, according to Gladstone Rose, chairman of the Bamboo and Indigenous Materials Advisory Committee (BIMAC) at the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ).

The overseas interest stems from demand for the renewable fuel by a chain of stores in the US that could take up to six million pounds a year, according to BIMAC.

In another instance, the Ministry of Education has agreed to use 1,000 chairs and desks in schools. Bamboo will replace imported ply boards that serve as desks and the metal frame that supports the back of chairs.

Meanwhile, Ultimate Bamboo Foundation, a business recently registered, is working towards making the bamboo ply board and a bamboo charcoal prototype.

Invariably, the bamboo sector is expected to generate employment and earn foreign exchange.

The plant is an ideal substitute for trees, which are currently being destroyed to produce charcoal, said the BSJ director. He added that the country loses one per cent of its forestry cover as a result of deforestation, while Jamaica has 106,000 acres of bamboo growing all over the island.

“It’s a good source to make any product that you would normally use the wood from tree to make,” he said. “If you want to make board, instead of using tree, you can use bamboo.”

The bamboo’s physical and mechanical properties make it comparable to steel.

Furthermore, the plant only takes three years to grow when first planted, and grows within a year after being cut.

Still, pyrolysis — the conversion of bamboo to charcoal — comes with best practices and the BSJ is currently working on a local bamboo charcoal standard.

In the meantime, experiments that are being done are checked against the guidelines set out by the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) of which Jamaica is a member.

Headquartered in China, INBAR works with countries on methods and approaches for sustainably managing wild and cultivated bamboo and rattan resources.

It’s still early days yet, but the BSJ appointed the Glengoffe Community Development Committee as the pilot community of the bamboo industrial products project. Community members are trained in the treatment, preservation, and splitting of the plant.

Moreover, the St Catherine based organisation was recently selected to participate in the Jamaica National Foundation’s Social Enterprise Boost Initiative (SEBI) business clinic.

“It is hoped that the initiative will help to start a commercial enterprise to provide the market with treated bamboo,” said Rose

For the most part, the production of materials made from bamboo operates like a cottage industry — small and informal.

It has been used by craftsmen to make items such as baskets for sale in the tourism sector and is used to make furniture for some households.

But the plant is plagued by an insect, that if not properly treated, will attack the material turning it to dust within months.

Never mind that, the BSJ has been spearheading a standard that is used by Glengoffe for the correct treatment of bamboo to ensure that the plant is ideal for production.

“Through the Bureau, the material will get the right treatment needed for it to work,” said Rose.

INBAR has given the country access to documents and technologies to develop bamboo prototypes, which include bamboo plywood and bamboo student chairs.