Environmental impact of bamboo laminated flooring and bamboo scrimber flooring investigated via life cycle assessment
Bamboo floorings are the most important industrial products in the bamboo sector. With the aim of providing a useful guide for the development of bamboo floorings, this study quantitatively assessed the environmental impacts of the two primary types of bamboo floorings, laminated flooring and scrimber flooring, using life cycle assessment (LCA) software SimaPro. The purpose of this study was to find out which type of bamboo flooring is more environmentally friendly through quantitatively analyzing the input and output of materials and energy during the whole life cycle of the two types of flooring products. The present study demonstrated that the majority of the environmental burdens were associated with the process of bamboo strip production for bamboo laminated flooring (59.3%), and the process of panel processing for bamboo scrimber floorings (56.9%). In terms of environmental loads, bamboo laminated flooring was considered more sustainable than bamboo scrimber flooring, as the total environmental loads of bamboo scrimber flooring was approximately 1.6 times that of bamboo laminated flooring.