Green Options

Salvaging thousands of used disposable chopsticks from the Koriyama’s city hall cafeteria over two years, Shuhei Ogawara has built a 4-meter (13-ft) long canoe.  It took three months for Ogawara to glue 7,382 chopsticks together to form the canoe shell.

Via:  Pink Tentacle

The last time you went to a Japanese restaurant, did you use your chopsticks? Maybe, maybe not. But if they were on the table, they got thrown away after you’d paid your bill and walked out the door, and most likely you thought nothing of it.

In the U.S., disposable wooden chopsticks are not very common — except in the occasional restaurant serving some type of Asian cuisine — but in Japan, they throw away 68.5 million pairs of disposable, wooden [...]

Living in the Western world, we Americans aren’t quite attuned to the disposal of used chopsticks. It simply isn’t that big of a problem, as we hurl food into our gaping maws with spiky metal shovels. Generally speaking, the only time we chop down forests in order to feed ourselves is when McDonald’s expands its beef production into the Amazon. The Chinese, our brothers and sisters across the great blue expanse, have an additional problem: chopsticks. They produce approximately 45 billion pairs a year, most of which being as disposable as a Uwe Boll movie. That amounts to about 25 million trees a year.

Learning to knit can seem a bit overwhelming, especially if you are familiar with long-time knitters and all of their tools and many needles. At the basic level, all you need to get started is a pair of needles and some yarn. Beyond that there are some very helpful tools to consider and Victoria has already complied a great list on what to get a novice knitter. But what about those pesky needles?

When deciding on what needles to invest in, you’ll want to consider what type of knitter you are and what type of projects you’re interested in. A fair amount of patterns, from sweaters to scarves, call for U.S. size 8/5 mm or 10/6 mm needles. So you’ll probably want to own these sizes. If you find yourself enamored by sock making you’ll want to stock up on U.S. size 0/2mm and 1/2.25mm.

So how do you go about acquiring these needles in an eco-conscious manner?

Choose Bamboo - Bamboo is a fast growing natural material that is used in a wide range of sustainable products. Over at Core77, you can read the pros and cons of bamboo as a “green” material. Needles made from bamboo are widely available at any craft store and are lightweight, virtually noiseless and easy on the hands. They are just the right texture to have ease of movement and are able to hold your stitches without fear of them falling off of your needle.

Disposable chopsticks are reserved mainly for Chinese take-out in America, but are an everyday staple for several Asian countries. Unfortunately, all of those chopsticks add up to a lot of deforestation.

China is the biggest consumer and exporter of disposable wooden chopsticks, producing 45 billion pairs each year, which uses up about 25 million trees. Last year the Chinese government imposed a 5% tax on disposable wooden chopsticks in an attempt to

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