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
- tyler tover 14 yearshow do they do it. And what is the point. It doesnt give you air.
- Hailey J. Allover 14 yearsI can't belive they could rebuild trees out of chopsticks, or popcicle sticks, or just regular sticks that they found. That is truly unbelivible! I'm amused.
- Joover 14 yearsAwesome!
- super starover 14 yearsThis was a great idea!
- Noah S (Torbenson)over 14 yearsHow did they put the chopsticks together? Are they going to bring the trees to Wisconsin some day?My family saves all are chopsticks.
- Alex W.over 14 yearsI think it's fun and I'd love to do it. The only only problem is that the don't exactly look the same as when they cut them down.
- Izzyover 14 yearsGreat for the earth and looks like a really cool piece of art
- KABORover 14 yearsi love how they are doing that. not only is it putting the used chopsticks to good use but it is also showing people what they are doing to the enviroment by cutting down those trees.
- katie k. [torbenson]over 14 yearsTotally aswome! It's good for the environment and looks great!(:
- Jacob P. (torbenson)over 14 yearsThat was alot of trees that they cut down. But it was cool how they rebuilt th trees. They rebuilt five feet tal trees thats amazing.