Greenpeace plants 'chopstick trees' in protest of disposable utensils

Source:Global Times Published: 2010-12-20 9:08:00


A Greenpeace volunteer puts the last chopstick in place on the tree installation Saturday at The Place, Chaoyang district. Photo: Wang Zi

By Huang Shaojie

Global environmental organization Greenpeace has set up a public installation in downtown Beijing to help call for the boycott of disposable chopsticks in China.

Over 200 volunteers worked for three weeks to collect more than 80,000 pairs of used chopsticks thrown away by restaurants, which they used to build four trees, each five meters tall, for an installation unveiled Saturday at The Place, Chaoyang district.

"These four trees should have been green," said Greenpeace forestry program director Li Aihong. "But consumption of disposable chopsticks has eaten their lives away."

Greenpeace is calling on people to say "no" to disposable chopsticks as it will be a small action that can help save forests and stop wasteful use of resources, Li said.

About 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are used every year in China, according to statistics provided on enviromental advocacy website Environmental Protection China (ep.net.cn).

If placed end to end, the yearly amount is "enough to reach the moon and back 15 times," claimed a Greenpeace press release.

The correlation between disposable chopsticks and forest depletion is often debated, with environmental groups arguing that these chopsticks pose great dangers to forests.

"About 3.8 million trees are cut every year for China's disposable chopsticks needs," Greenpeace claimed, citing China Forestry Statistical Yearbook (2005-2009), published by government-backed China Forestry Press. "The chopstick industry uses fine timber, not leftovers."

Some government figures disagree. "Disposable chopsticks are made from bamboo and scraps from birchwood processing and account for no more than 1 percent of the country's entire timber consumption," according to China's Forestry Administration statistics (forestry.gov.cn).

"Disposable chopsticks are thrown away as garbage," said volunteer and artist Xu Yinhai, who helped design the chopstick trees.

"We hope [this public display] makes people think about the forests that are gone because of their unnecessary dining habits."

A few hundred people already have signed a pledge to stop using disposable chopsticks at The Place since Saturday, Greenpeace media officer Zhang Yizi told the Global Times.

The installation will be on display until the end of Monday. The chopstick trees are planned to be displayed at universities and art venues for future exhibitions, Zhang said.



Posted in: Society, Metro Beijing

blog comments powered by Disqus