Environmentally, it's hard to argue with a wood-substitute that matures in three years, regenerates without need for replanting, and requires minimal fertilization or pesticides. In fact, these larger species of bamboo have been used in construction for thousands of years, and even in modern Asian cities it's not uncommon to see a large concrete building being constructed from a bamboo scaffolding. To make bamboo flooring, the hollow round shoots are sliced into strips, which are boiled to remove the starch. The strips are dried and laminated into solid boards, which are then milled into standard strip flooring profiles. The bamboo is treated with preservative, either before it is laminated, after, or both.
Most manufacturers offer both a light, natural color flooring and a darker, amber variety.
This amber color is achieved by pressure steaming the bamboo, which darkens it by carbonization. A number of bamboo flooring products are now available in North America, but most are manufactured in a very similar manner. Bamboo Hardwood's Doug Lewis experimented with a non-formaldehyde isocyanate resin but found it made the product too expensive. UF resin tends to offgas formaldehyde for quite a long time after production, but the amount of resin in a laminated product is much less than in a particleboard-type product. All the manufacturers tout the hardness and dimensional stability of their bamboo flooring, though the actual data cited vary somewhat.