Disposable Chopstick Tax Arrives...in China

[Mulboyne]

Telegraph: Tax on wooden chopsticks to save China's forests
China's new-found environmental consciousness has hit home at the heart of its culture, with the government yesterday announcing a five per cent tax on disposable wooden chopsticks. The ministry of finance in Beijing said chopstick production used up China's forests at a rate of 70 million cubic feet of wood a year, a waste it wanted to discourage...Wooden floor panels, another high consumer of wood, and even yachts, of which there are very few in China, will also fall victim to the consumption tax...more...

[Mulboyne]

Asia in Focus via TMC: China's plan to halt disposable chopsticks exports to affect Japan

Japan depends on China for 90 per cent of its disposable chopsticks, so reports from importers that China plans to cease exports to Japan by 2008 are bad news for convenience stores, supermarkets and restaurants. The Chinese government and chopstick manufacturers announced around mid-March that exports would be reduced in a measure to protect China's forest resources. But now it appears that exports will eventually be halted altogether. Japan goes through some 24 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks a year.

[Mulboyne]

MDN: Chinese restriction on production of disposable chopsticks hits Japan hard

...Marche Co., the operator of a chain of 760 pubs and restaurants, replaced disposable chopsticks with reusable plastic chopsticks. About 250 pubs operated by Marche give 50-yen awards to customers who bring their own chopsticks. Once customers accumulate 500-yen worth of points, they will be given a 500-yen food or drink coupon. On the other hand, convenience store operators such as Lawson and Seven-Eleven have so far taken a wait-and-see attitude...more...

[otakuden]

i can only imagine the wastage involved in mass-producing and using wood chopsticks. personally, i love to carry mine with me when i got out for sushi. i used to have a pair of stainless steel ones, but lost em. in the meantime, a pair of plastic ones are keeping me company until i can get another pair of stainless steel chopsticks.

[GomiGirl]

Gomichild gave me a pair of hashi from Singapore that fit in my handbag. They are in a sweet little carry box and you screw them together - bit like a portable pool cue. They are a great idea.

[otakuden]

Gomichild gave me a pair of hashi from Singapore that fit in my handbag. They are in a sweet little carry box and you screw them together - bit like a portable pool cue. They are a great idea.

that is sweet! and they come with a carry box. i haven't seen anything like that before.

[ichigo partygirl]

Chopstick tussle adds bite to Orient's diplomatic spat


THE diplomatic wrangling between Beijing and Tokyo has spilt on to dinner tables, forcing Japanese to contemplate the unthinkable: eating their food the way China wants them to.....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25689-2208694,00.html

[Mulboyne]

Ministop has begun charging 5 yen for disposable chopsticks in selected stores with a plan to extend the scheme throughout their whole network.

[tatsujin]

i can only imagine the wastage involved in mass-producing and using wood chopsticks. personally, i love to carry mine with me when i got out for sushi. i used to have a pair of stainless steel ones, but lost em. in the meantime, a pair of plastic ones are keeping me company until i can get another pair of stainless steel chopsticks.

I'm amazed the Japanese haven't jumped on a trend similar to what Otakuden suggests and Gomigirl has.

With their love of customisation and personal expression surely its a market just waiting to be tapped?

(I do like the screw-together hashi Gomi!)

[cstaylor]

I'm amazed the Japanese haven't jumped on a trend similar to what Otakuden suggests and Gomigirl has.

Do you bring your own silverware to a western restaurant?

At their current pricing, reusable chopsticks are just not worth the trouble for small ramen shops that have high customer turnover.

[Mulboyne]

At their current pricing, reusable chopsticks are just not worth the trouble for small ramen shops that have high customer turnover.

ChosunIbo: Japanese Find Rising Costs of Chinese Chopsticks Hard to Swallow

...Walking into the Suikoden pub in Tokyo's working class Ikebukuro district, customers hear gyoza dumplings sizzling in the frying pans as they get a traditional greeting from the staff. But when patrons sit down to eat, they find not the traditional disposable wooden chopsticks, but plastic ones...more...

[Mulboyne]

AFP: Japan eyes chopsticks for biofuel

Japan will try to turn the millions of wooden chopsticks that go discarded each year into biofuel to ease the country's energy shortage, officials said Wednesday. Biofuels are seen as an alternative clean energy resource that can reduce dependence on Middle East oil and lessen the impact of global warming. Japan has virtually no natural energy resources of its own. Restaurants and convenience stores generally hand out disposable, wooden chopsticks without asking. Each of Japan's 127 million people uses an average of 200 sets a year, meaning 90,000 tons of wood, according to government data. Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plans to set up boxes to collect used chopsticks, ministry official Toyohisa Aoyama said. "We will look at the pluses and minuses, including to greenhouse gas emissions, of the process of collecting the chopsticks, carrying them to facilities and then producing the biofuel," he said...more...

[Taro Toporific]

AFP: Japan eyes chopsticks for biofuel

China does it better by recycling.



Latest China Scare: Dirty Chopsticks
--Beijing Factory Recycled Used Chopsticks, Sold Up to 100,000 Pairs a Day--
Aug 22, 2007
BEIJING (Reuters) -A Beijing factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest in a string of Chinese food and product safety scares....
Officials raided the factory and seized about half a million pairs of recycled disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said. The owner, identified only by his surname Wu, said he had sold the recycled chopsticks for 0.04 yuan a pair and made an average of about 1,000 yuan ($130) a day.....

[Greji]

".....sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection....."

That's not ture. They had a guy standing at the end of the conveyor belt wiping off each set on his sleeve to make sure they were clean, before he put them in the package.

[Taro Toporific]

That's not ture. They had a guy standing at the end of the conveyor belt wiping off each set on his sleeve to make sure they were clean, before he put them in the package.

The only wipe off on their sleeves the chopsticks going to Chinese customers. They spit shine the ones going to Japan.



(I was a Chinese person working for 80yen/day in a factory sending products to Japan, I would at least pee on the chopsticks before sending them out.)