Japan eyes chopsticks for biofuel

Officials in Japan say the country will try to turn the millions of wooden chopsticks that go discarded each year into biofuel to ease the country’s energy shortage.

Restaurants and convenience stores generally hand out disposable, wooden chopsticks without asking.

According to government data, each of Japan’s 127 million people uses an average of 200 sets a year, meaning 90,000 tons of wood.
Ministry official Toyohisa Aoyama says Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plans to set-up boxes to collect used chopsticks.

“We will look at the pluses and minuses, including to greenhouse gas emissions, of the process of collecting the chopsticks, carrying them to facilities and then producing the biofuel,” he said.

Disposable chopsticks have historically been a cash cow for Japan’s forestry industry, which says it uses timber from thinning that would have otherwise been dumped.

But today about 90 per cent of chopsticks used in Japan are imported from China, mostly using bamboo and aspen timber, Mr Aoyama said.

ABC Aus