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Signs of Change
In "September 2000, Greener Beijing Tableware Bag Action was launched. Volunteers made tableware bags and distributed them to the public to promote the idea of reducing the use of disposable chopsticks and other disposable goods as well." The Nadakobe Co-operative enterprise of Japan, a consumer co-operative with 940,000 members (known from April 1991 as Consumers Co-operative Kobe), banned the use of disposable chopsticks in its staff training programs, substituting them with reusable bamboo chopsticks. The enterprise called for a ban on the use of disposable chopsticks in order to reduce the use of forest resources. Sushi Ran Restaurant "has stopped using waribashi and has replaced them with reusable lacquered chopsticks," inviting its customers "to help us save some valuable trees." As part of Project Hope during the reconstruction of schools after the 1999 earthquake, teachers in Taiwan gave the children reusable chopsticks, telling them, "We need to appreciate our blessings. By carrying them with us, we can save three pairs of disposable chopsticks a day, and save a tremendous amount of the earth's resources each year." Yasuda Trust and Banking decided to join a growing number of Japanese organisations and ban the use of disposable wooden chopsticks. Yasuda had been getting through them at the rate of 650,000 pairs a year-three tons of wasted wood. Now it has switched to plastic, reuseable chopsticks. An environmental education group of bicyclists in Japan called Bicycle Everyone's Earth (BEE) includes among its pledges "using no waribashi or other disposable eating utensils." As part of its Environmentally Conscious Hospitality Operations (ECHO) initiative, Marriot's Internation Hotels is replacing wrapped disposable chopsticks with reusable plastic chopsticks in its Hong Kong hotels. |
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Revised Sat, Oct 11, 2003