ANSI Standard Bamboo Shipping Pallet

Many people asked us how we came to care about bamboo charcoal. It all began in 2008 with our bamboo pallet project and was the first idea that lead us to our current place in the world and our mission with bamboo.

Maya Bamboo had the opportunity to write a patent for our bamboo pallet design. We intended to be a supplier of carbon neutral bamboo shipping pallets, allowing users of the product to lessen their carbon footprint and improve their bottom line performance. Our business plan employed green technology including wind, solar, geothermal, and bio-diesel fuel to succeed in being a carbon neutral company. By using a sustainable raw material like bamboo to produce shipping pallets we would compete in a wood and plastic dominated industry.

We developed non-phenol based plywood from bamboo and collaborated with a group in Vietnam to manufacture it to our standards so that we could build out several prototypes. The pallets were then tested by the engineers at the Center for Unit Load Design, Virginia Polytechnic for lifecycle performance abilities. The testing showed incredible results. However, in the 2008 financial climate and a business plan asking for $6,000,000 in investment to start the 165-acre plantation and the 250,000 unit manufacturing plant, the project came up against great capital challenges.

Production of bamboo pallets remains an industry of the future, which we very much hope will be realized. Part of our business plan included a zero waste production line. The waste from the bamboo plywood production would be turned into charcoal and then donated to developing countries that utilized charcoal as a fuel source. Upon further examination of the charcoal market we saw the opportunity for bamboo’s role as well as our own.