INDUSTRY AWARENESS OF BAMBOO-BASED MATERIALS IN PARTICLEBOARD AND FURNITURE MANUFACTURING: EVIDENCE FROM MALAYSIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJIREV.824016Keywords:
Bamboo-Based Materials, Industry Awareness, Particleboard and Furniture Manufacturing, Sustainable Materials, Wood-Based Composites, MalaysiaAbstract
The rising demand for the forest resources coupled with the rising sustainability and regulatory burdens has increased pressure on the wood-based manufacturing systems in an attempt to find alternatives to wood. It is generally known that bamboo is an eco-friendly alternative to conventional timber because it is fast to replenish and has favourable material characteristics. Although bamboo has good policy backing and much technical research has been done, the industrial utilization of bamboo in the production of particleboard, chipboard and furniture is still minimal, especially where it comes to lack of industry-level awareness and application know-how. This paper examines the awareness of the manufacturers of the bamboo-based materials in the industry in Malaysia. A quantitative survey was carried out in the period of October 2025 and January 2026 making 228 valid responses from the particleboard, chipboard and furniture industry. The industry awareness had been evaluated on four dimensions that were general familiarity with the industry, specific application awareness, benefits awareness and challenges awareness. The descriptive analysis and the correlational analysis suggest that the level of knowledge about the benefits of bamboo, in general, and the sustainability-related benefits, in particular, is consistently high, and the overall and technical knowledge levels are relatively low and have a significant difference between the firms. The extent of challenge awareness is moderate and with low dispersion which shows that there is a high level of agreement among the manufacturers. The result of correlation tests proves that familiarity is more associated with the awareness of challenges than the separately assessed benefits. On the whole, the idea of bamboo-based materials in the industry is mostly theoretical and not practical, which also indicates a significant gap in knowledge that prevents the use of this approach by industries and the shift to more sustainable production.
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