Bam-On: Celebrating Hong Kong Culture Through Slip Ons Made From Recycled Bamboo Scaffolding

Hong Kong is the city with the most skyscrapers in the world, and while other cities use metal scaffolding for construction, Hong Kong uses traditional bamboo scaffolding. While bamboo scaffolding is a traditional building technique that symbolises the Hong Kong culture (one can see it everywhere!), it goes straight into the landfill once the constructions are finished due to safety concerns. The more than 50,000 tonnes of bamboo rods sent to the landfill each year not only use up landfill space, but also contribute to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, pollutants, and toxic chemicals.

Concerned with the large amount of bamboo scaffolding waste sent to the landfill each day and wanting to incorporate Hong Kong culture in his designs, Angus Ko from the Erth Company created Bam-On: sustainable bamboo footwear made from recycled bamboo scaffolding after their use in construction. These bamboo rods were collected, cleaned, disinfected and laminated to be turned into insoles for Erth's slip ons.

The Bam-On project showcases that using waste as a design resource does not necessarily need to come from conventional waste sources such as food waste, and used plastic bottles, etc. but it can come from anywhere that we see in our daily lives. This means that with a bit of creativity and attention to detail, it is highly likely that we can repurpose anything we see in front of our eyes without the need of extracting new resources, hence keeping existing resources within the closed loop.

In this case for Bam-On's design, as the bamboo used as scaffolding in Hong Kong is highly durable, strong, quick drying, and supportive, it makes bamboo a good material for footwear, especially slip-ons. It is also lightweight, odourless, and vegan.