Green Chopsticks

the Gist of the Problem

The problem is, basically, that we are trashing the forests -- turning trees into landfill. Although we do this in a thousand other ways, few are as direct and as wholly unnecessary as the use of disposable chopsticks. Trees are being cut down to pass briefly across our plates on their way to the garbage dumps.

Disposable chopsticks, or "waribashi," as they are called in Japan, are made of three types of wood. The most common are squarish, split-apart ones made from aspens, or sometimes birches or poplars, which grow in northern temperate regions in China and North America. Old aspen groves have been called "the mothers of forests,"¹ because they nurture young conifers, and they provide a rich habitat for many birds and mammals. Much less common are longer, rounder chopsticks made of bamboo; these are higher quality, splinter less, and can be washed and reused. There are also reports of throwaway chopsticks made from tropical hardwoods from the rainforests of Malaysia, the Philippines and Brazil²; apparently most of these go to Japan; they might sometimes be found in the US. Rainforests are among the most diverse and important habitats and it is outrageous that they are being cut down to make throwaway items.

Disposable chopsticks are not made from scrap wood. They are made from very clear, straight-grained wood -- even though it sometimes splinters off to one side when you separate the chopsticks -- wood that only comes from select trees. Manufacturers of disposable chopsticks clear-cut old growth forests looking for this wood. In Canada there are estimates that up to 85% of the aspens are wasted in the process.

This is what makes the production of chopsticks such a significant issue. They probably use a fraction of the trees that are cut down for pulp (itself a great problem), but they require top-end wood, and so entail the destruction of old groves and the rich old-growth habitats they provide.

There are many myths and little hard information about the production of chopsticks. Over a century ago disposable chopsticks were made from scrap lumber, and so some people still think they have little impact. But this is no longer the case; today disposable chopsticks are made from old trees clearcut for that purpose.

Its difficult to nail down the numbers on chopsticks. Japan uses an estimated 25 billion pairs of waribashi every year. China estimates that it uses about 45 billion pairs. Korea restricted restaurants from using disposable chopsticks, but is still listed as a major importer, as is the United States.

Whatever the numbers are, the forests are disappearing. There are estimates that China's will be gone in ten years. It took only eight years for Mitsubishi to exhaust the aspen forests near Fort Nelson, British Columbia, where its subsidiary Canadian Chopstick Manufacturing Company was the largest chopstick manufacturer in the world until it shut down in 1997.

Of course, these forests have been well used by other species. We still need to know more about the ecology of aspen forests. We need to know what other kinds of wood are being turned into chopsticks. We need to know about the impacts other kinds of chopsticks have as well.

We need to find these things out. And in the meantime, we need to stop using so many disposable chopsticks, and see if we can preserve some of the old forests that remain.