🥢 Disposable chopsticks: practical or bad for the environment?

4 min read

History of chopsticks. Environmental impact. When there's a will, there's another way to eat.

During one dinner at a restaurant, one friend ask why am I still using disposable chopsticks? Isn't spoon more sustainable? well he might be right! This kind of question always raises my curiosity, so here is some tinkering answer that I found.

⛩️ History of chopsticks

If you love sushi, ramen noodle, or Asian food in general, you probably have used chopsticks or at least tried to use them. But we never know how it all started. According to the history channel, chopsticks were first introduced in China more than 3000 years ago as cooking utensils.

Interestingly enough, it was only introduced as an eating utensil during one of the earliest population booms in China. Eating with chopsticks is one measure to reduce the country's food consumption due to the higher efforts required to finish a meal (sounds more like a fad diet suggestion).

Not only good for the belly, but it might also be good for the mind. Chopsticks fit well with the vegetarian teaching of Confucianism, away from the sharp lethal knife.

"The honorable and upright man keeps well away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen. And he allows no knives on his table" said Confucius.

The modern disposable chopsticks as we know them were introduced by the Japanese in late 1800, mostly made out of wood or bamboo. It's a genius invention that perhaps also fuels the adoption of this exotic method of eating and the "fast-foodization" of Asian cuisine.

However, no one expected that a humble non-violent way of eating has been adopted by millions of hungry foodies around the globe, and raising the questions of its environmental impact.

🌱 Environmental impact

Since the start of the Covid lockdown in 2020, most of us have been eating takeaway meal or ordering delivery more than ever before. According to Statista, Asian food makes up 15.4% of the food delivery market (only second to Pizza), and perhaps delivered with at least one disposable chopsticks.

Even though it might felt that using wood or bamboo chopsticks is not as bad as a plastic spoon or fork, chopsticks are thrown away as fast as our tummy is satisfied. You don't need to be a mathematician to see how big is this issue, not forgetting the amounts used in a restaurant.

Because chopsticks are made out of wood and bamboo, the demand for these materials increases with the increasing popularity of Asian delicacies. In 2018, it was expected that more than 50 billion chopsticks are produced, equivalent to cutting down over 20 million trees.

Not only that, but the production of disposable chopsticks also competes with other more beneficial use cases for wood and bamboo such as building houses or furniture. It is insane to imagine that we are clearing out the forests just to satisfy our authentic greed when slurping a bowl of ramen noodles.

We all know that it's hard to learn how to use chopsticks, but maybe it's not as hard to unlearn it.

💭 When there's a will, there's another way to eat.

A. Avoid: Silverware and hands

Well, I don't need to explain that there are other alternatives to chopsticks, such as the shiny silverware and our bare hands. In contrary to general belief, you can also eat sushi with your hands rather than the shame of dropping it as a result of our noob chopsticks skill.

B. Reuse: Reusable chopsticks

If you still want to immerse yourself like in the song "Turning Japanese", why not use reusable chopsticks instead. It is normal for most Asian households to have their own chopsticks at home, a smaller version for the kids, or even a hello kitty one for the geeks.

The Koreans for example, are using chopsticks made out of silver, initially started in the king palaces as a way to detect poison, as silver react with arsenic (a common poison) and will turn into green color. Who knows that adopting a K-pop lifestyle is one way to avoid a deadly poison while also becoming more sustainable.

C. Recycle: Chopsticks circularity

If we can not avoid and reuse, then recycling is the last option. Rather than throwing that bamboo sticks into the trash why don't we be more creative and make something useful out of it?

Chopvalue, a startup based in Canada, has been working to create various products from recycled chopsticks. Not only that their products look beautiful and more sustainable, but we can also be sure that the smell of salmon sashimi has long gone.

D. Bonus: Chopsticks for self-defense

If none of the solutions above fits your taste, why not learn how to use chopsticks as a self defense tool in a zombie apocalypse.

🌄 Conclusion

I hope you now learned a bit about chopsticks. Next time you order an Asian takeaway, say no to the disposable chopsticks, who knows that you might get an extra fortune cookie instead.

For some of us who never have mastered the art of using chopsticks like a kungfu panda, don't be ashamed, tell your friends that using a spoon might actually save the panda.

Thanks for reading this article. Eat well and keep asking questions🤓.