Fight against disposable chopsticks rises again

For many, it's convenient to use disposable chopsticks while eating outside. CFP Photo

By Li Zhixin

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC), along with the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC), Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) and four other ministries, released a notice in June requiring local governments to carry out stricter restrictions on companies that make disposable chopsticks.

The notice said “production, circulation and recycling of disposable chopsticks should be more strictly supervised.” The MOC and NDRC plan to establish a disposable chopsticks recycling program by setting up collection points at consumption areas.

The country is the manufacturing, consuming and exporting giant of disposable chopsticks.
“China produces more than 1 million 20-feet equivalent units of disposable chopsticks every year, and about 40 percent of the industry’s products are used domestically,” said Qian Xiaoyu, vice president of the Chinese Forest Product Industrial Association.

In the last 10 years, several local governments in Shaanxi, Zhejiang and Henan provinces have launched campaigns to reduce the usage of one-off chopsticks and to strengthen the recycling work, but the results have fallen short of their expectations. The ministry said Chinese people consume as many as 45 billion one-off chopsticks each year, equivalent to about 130 million chopsticks per day. Nearly half of them do not get recycled.

Qian said three pairs of recycled chopsticks can be processed to make one postcard or one piece of paper, but 35 percent of Chinese people don’t know how disposable chopsticks are recycled.

Disposable chopsticks are either made from wood or bamboo. Wooden chopsticks mainly come from Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces, while bamboo chopsticks are distributed from Jiangxi, Guangxi, Hunan and Zhejiang provinces.