by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
While I do like Chinese food, and yes, I do know real Chinese food as well, not just an Anglicized version of it, I don't have to have it all the time. I do love Sushi too and would have a lot more of it if I could afford it. However, I do like to use chopsticks, and not just for Chinese and Japanese food – there are other foods where chopsticks can be used too – and am quite good with them as well.
For one thing, who really does think about and consider chopsticks and their environmental impact? Most people, I am sure, assume that even disposable chopsticks couldn’t be that bad for the environment, especially as they’re usually made of wood or bamboo, and the same majority will not have ever heard of the BYOC (Bring Your Own Chopsticks) movement. I have though and do a BYO as far as chopsticks are concerned and also – often – carry my own general stainless steel flatware.
So, who really ever gives a thought to a pair of chopsticks? The truth is that we should.
A pair of chopsticks is fairly often present at your table at a meal in a Chinese or Japanese restaurant or it comes along with your take-away meal, and with every sushi pack that you may buy at the local supermarket and those sticks can be made of plastic, wood or bamboo.
Chopsticks like most other disposable cutlery items pose an environmental hazard depending on what they are made of. Plastic flatware is, well, plastic which is oil-based and thus causes the usual plastic problem in waste management and landfill, and in this case especially as flatware is of a plastic that generally does not get recycled. As far as chopsticks are concerned some are made of a very hard plastic and those do not have to be thrown away to start with, but more often than not are.
But then there are the wooden chopsticks and Japan is the top importer of tropical and temperate hardwood. Much of this wood goes into making, yes, you guessed it, disposable chopsticks. Trees from as far away as the USA, Canada, Britain and other EU countries, are cut down, seasoned and shipped to make little sticks which are thrown away after a single use. The environmental footprint of this all does not bear thinking of. They could, however, equally well, and better, made from bamboo, as some are, and still throwing them is a shame. But that is another story, is it not.
In China, despite the 5% tax imposed in 2006 on disposable chopsticks and the efforts by the government to raise awareness as to the damage they cause to the environment, they remain as ubiquitous as ever. Several hundreds thousand acres of forest are leveled annually to supply more than 45 billion pairs of chopsticks and according to one estimate this makes about 100 acres of trees per day. Many environmental problems in China, including and especially the landslide in China’s Gansu Province that killed more than 1,200 people, are a direct result of the destruction of the forests.
There are a variety of “bring your own chopsticks” (BYOC) movements in Asian countries that aim to create awareness and get people to recycle, reuse and bring their own. Many companies have also started manufacturing collapsible chopsticks that can be carried with ease and reused. Eco-friendly disposable chopsticks also exist, but their cost prevents restaurants from making the switch. Ecota Environmental Technology, Ltd. manufactures biodegradable disposable chopsticks made out of corn starch, but they are more than twice as expensive as their wooden counterparts. Plastic chopsticks that can be reused are also an option as they can be cleaned in sterilizers. The other option, as said already, and was it not the original chopstick, are chopsticks made of bamboo.
Cutting down on chopsticks makes sense environmentally, but it may not make immediate short-term economic sense. At present more than 300,000 people are dependent on the wooden chopstick industry, across 300 factories in China (and other Asian countries) and the exports of their wares brings in $200m a year.
However, there are other ways for them to make a living, certainly, though it may take a while to redeploy them. And could they not, equally well make bamboo chopsticks? I sure should think so. Bamboo chopsticks, in my view, have many benefits over the wooden ones and one of them is that they don't break easily if one would like to retains them for a BYO chopsticks approach.
Personally, as I have indicated above, I have a couple of sets that I have salvaged from takeout meals – in this case bamboo and also some wooded ones – as well as some plastic ones from restaurants after I found out that they throw them out each and every time after use.
There is no need to throw those if you have used them yourself. All that is needed is to put them in with washing the dishes, using a little vinegar to sterilize them and they are ready for use.
One set of those salved from takeout meals travels with me in a leather pouch, as does a set of stainless steel flatware, and this is for two reasons; one being that I do not wish to use throwaway cutlery or chopsticks and secondly for cultural reasons.
So, let me reiterate that – one – all those chopsticks that are used and thrown have a serious environmental impact and – two – that you can use those to create your own BYOC sets.
Let's do it...
© 2011
