I prefer hard wood/butcher block. End grain is preferable. Nicer to work on and more durable but more expensive than edge grain. If you look around you can get a good deal though. I got a 18" x 18" x 2.5" one for around $30. I believe its maple or oak. IIRC it was at Target. Plastic boards can be good. But in my experience you want to go with the commercial grade ones you can get at restaurant supply shops. They’re typically referred to as “poly” boards, apparently they’re made of polyethylene. Most of them are unbranded, but there San Jamar and Sanalite and a few other names out there. They’ll be NSF certified and come in a bunch of shapes and sizes, including custom. There are also brown synthetic rubber commercial grade boards (I seem to remember Rubbermaid making some of these). I kind of like these They’ve got a different feel than the plastic, denser but slightly softer and more knife friendly. And they grip the table well, and are less prone to warping. But I’ve never actually seen on in a commercial kitchen, and a chef friend told me they’re prone to breaking down and bonding with grease much more so than the poly. I haven’t used on frequently enough to know how well it would work out in the home.
Thicker is generally better as thicker boards are less likely to warp. Especially with poly. The plastic boards (and sometimes edge grain) need to be sanded down from time to time to remove the knife marks and keep them sanitary. The poly boards come in a couple different colors, and surface textures. The smoother boards seem to warp easier and much more significantly. If you’re concerned about the sustainability there’s some compressed wood pulp (or something) boards made in the USA that claim to be sustainable. Seems like an ultra-dense particle board. What little interaction I’ve had with them they seem to be just as (if not more so) hard and slick as bamboo. Or just consider that wood is actually fairly sustainable and a decent board will last a life time (often even if poorly taken care of). I’ve also got a small poly board that’s probably damned near 20 years old a this point and still perfectly fine.
