Abstract:

Plastic pollution has become a global environmental crisis, posing a serious threat to ecological balance and human health. As a substitute for plastic, bamboo serves as a key alternative pathway, contributing Chinese wisdom and solutions to global plastic pollution governance and establishing itself as another “diplomatic card” for China. China has abundant bamboo resources, mature processing technologies, complete industrial chain systems, and vast market scale, laying a solid foundation for the development of the bamboo substitution industry. This paper first systematically elaborates on the connotation of the green transformation concept of “bamboo as a substitute for plastic” and the current development status of diversified substitute products under this background. It then introduces in detail two main technical pathways for developing bamboo substitute products: the original-state utilization of bamboo and composite reconstitution. Based on these two pathways, a series of products have been successfully developed, including bamboo drinking straws, bamboo hangers, bamboo fiber lunch boxes, bamboo fiber automotive interior parts, bamboo winding composite pipes, bamboo water cooling fillers for cooling towers, bamboo film bags, and bamboo charcoal based fully biodegradable mulch films. These products have been promoted and applied in fields such as fast-moving consumer goods, transportation, building materials, packaging, and agricultural and forestry planting. By further developing technologies for the depolymerization and reconstitution of the main components of bamboo cell walls, the traditional limitation that “forming equals shaping” for natural materials has been overcome. This enables the transformation of bamboo into functional plastic reducing sheets and plastic reducing composite materials with optical, sound, thermal, electromagnetic management properties, significantly expanding the functional application boundaries of bamboo. Furthermore, in view of the current bottleneck issues facing the bamboo substitution industry, several considerations are proposed to stimulate the vitality of the domestic market for bamboo substitute products, shift future technological innovation from an “indicator oriented” approach to a “cost oriented” approach, and improve the quality inspection system. Ultimately, the goal is to transform the green concept of “bamboo as a substitute for plastic” into a green industry, providing a nature-based solution for global plastic pollution governance.

Key words: bamboo as a substitute for plastic (BASP), green transition, original-form utilization, depolymerization and reconstitution, diversified products, development bottleneck