Turning Chopsticks Back To Trees
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Though most people think that chopsticks are made from scrap wood, they are actually made from trees - Not just any trees, but Aspens, sometimes also known as the 'mother of forests' because they protect young Conifer trees and provide a rich habitat for birds and mammals. And, we are not talking chopping down a few trees, but millions of them!
It is estimated that the world's biggest user, China cuts down 3.8 million trees annually, to manufacture the over 5.7 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks that the country goes through each year.
To try make people aware of the destruction they are causing with this one small habit, environmental activist company Greenpeace, paired up with advertisement agency Ogilvy & Mather, and came up with this brilliant idea - Turn the used chopsticks back into trees. While it was a great idea, it was dirty work - for it involved visiting all these Chinese restaurants and collecting used chopsticks from the trash.
However, thanks to 200 hard-working volunteers from 20 Beijing Universities, they managed to gather and clean 80,000 pairs of disposable chopsticks, within just three weeks. Then, under the guidance of Chinese designer, Xu Yinhai, they set about building the trees.
On December 20th, four, 5-ft. tall chopstick trees were planted at Beijing's most popular mall, The Place. Over the year, the trees will be moved around and displayed at universities and other prominent public places. Greenpeace is hoping they will be able to convince people all over China to switch to re-usable chopsticks and help save the country's scarce natural resources.
What a great idea! Now if they had only stuck in some fortune cookies for the leaves, life would have been perfect!
Sources:odditycentral.com,china.org.cn, greenpeace.org/eastasia
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269 Comments
- Ms. Balmost 15 yearsDo you think when people see these trees that it will make them change their ways? What would the trees make you want to do?
- Kashi10almost 15 yearsHow many chopsticks do you think they used?
- Kashi10almost 15 yearsThat must of took a long time
- sav. torbensonalmost 15 yearsWhy would they turn chopsticks back into trees? It's a good idea because they're turning them back into trees and they are very beautiful. Also it is great that so many people came to help them do this.
- Josh G. (Torbenson)almost 15 yearsI think that it is almost impossible. But it is a very good idea.
- will torbensonalmost 15 yearsI think it is discostien that they use chopsticks that have been used.
- Mike F ALLENalmost 15 yearsI wonder how long it took to put together the chop stick tree.
- Megan L. (Allen)almost 15 yearsThat is so cool that they are trying to make chopsticks into trees. I wonder how long it takes them to make 2,000,000 trees, if they had enough chopsticks!
- Jamie B (Allen)almost 15 yearsHow do they get the chopsticks to stay up in a tree form? I think they're helping the enviroment a lot. That's cool!
- Jake H. [Allen]almost 15 yearsI think it's a good idea to turn chopsticks back to trees. We should do something like that!