Greenpeace launched last year a campaign in China to call attention to the urgent need for forest conservation in China. One of the main issues they focused on was chopsticks.According to statistics from the Forestry Administration, China produced 57 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks in 2009 alone. How many trees were cut down for these chopsticks? According to Greenpeace , the production of disposable chopsticks required wood from 3.8 million trees!
Last year Greenpeace and Ogilvy Beijing have teamed up to plant an eye-catching “chopstick forest” that was displayed outside The Place, a popular shopping center in the heart of Beijing.
Ogilvy explained how it worked:
Over the last several months, Ogilvy worked with Greenpeace, local artist Yinhai Xu and more than 200 volunteers from 20 Chinese universities to collect more than 80,000 pairs of used (and sanitized) disposable wooden chopsticks from restaurants and repurposed them into a forest of chopstick trees that stand approximately 5 meters tall.
Aihong Li, director of Greenpeace's Forest Protection Program, said: “These trees should have been abundantly green and vibrant, but now they are pieced together with wasteful disposable chopsticks. Our hope is that everyone in China will join us in saying "no" to disposable chopsticks to protect our forests.”
Now, 6 months later, Greenpeace is coming out with a video entitled "Disposable Project" that is showing the campaign and calling for greater awareness among chopstick users for the materials the chopsticks are made from. In other words: Trees. Their suggestion? Very simple - replacing wooden chopsticks with a plastic or metal version, a reusable and environmentally-friendly alternative. Think about it next time you order Chinese take-out.Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Plant trees for your books!
