Green Chopsticks

Tropical Hardwoods

Why would anyone want to cut down tropical rainforest to make one-use throway chopsticks? The answer is the same as the reason tropical hardwood is used for temporary construction plywood: its cheap, and it has a smooth, knotless grain.

Not surprisingly, one of the major loggers of tropical froests is Mitsubishi Corp, which owns so many destructive subsidiary operations worldwide that it has for years been the focus of an international boycott orangized by the Rainforest Action Group (RAG).

In 1994 Activist Michael Marx told the Daily Illini¹ that Mitsubishi Trading Company was the most notable company in logging 90 percent of the Philippines' forests and was then deforesting the Malaysian state of Sarawak. RAG member Ratna Radhakrishna said that trees "are not properly replanted and they are being used to make disposable chopsticks and other one-time-use products."

Species

In Vietnam, populations of a slow-growing ebony species, Diospyros mun, have declined in the wild because of the demand for timber for the export market; the black heartwood is valued for craft objects and especially for chopsticks²; Vietnam has restricted logging of the species and may ban it altogether.

The Malaysian Timber Industry Board³ lists six rainforest trees from Sarawak as being "suitable for disposable chopsticks:" Ara (Ficus spp.), Laran (Anthocephalus chinensis), Petai (Parkia spp.), Pulai (Alstonia spp.), Sesendok (Endospermum spp.), and Terentang (Campnosperma spp.).

The herbarium at Kew Botanical Garden's in England keeps records of the uses of plant species. Their Flora of Brunei Darussalam⁴ lists Salacia cf. chinensis (CELASTRACEAE) and Sauraria bruneiensis (ACTINIDIACEAE) as species used for chopsticks in Brunei.

Hampson et al (2001)⁵ note that the wood of Ilang-Ilang (Cananga odorata (ANNONACEA)), a tree better known for its fragrant flowers, is cut to make chopsticks in the Philippines. Another Philippines species used for chopsticks is the gubas tree, Endospermum peltatum (EUPHORBIACEAE)⁶