Chopsticks as biofuel

Archiv – Japan will attempt to turn millions of wooden chopsticks discarded each year into biofuel to ease the country’s energy shortage.Japan | Japan will attempt to turn millions of wooden chopsticks discarded each year into biofuel to ease the country’s energy shortage.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is planning to introduce boxes for the collection of used chopsticks, according to official Toyohisa Aoyama. ’We will look at the pluses and minuses – including greenhouse gas emissions – of the process of collecting the chopsticks, carrying them to facilities and then producing the biofuel,’ he says.
The ministry is seeking a budget for the recycling project. It also aims to study the possibility of turning inedible products such as straw into biofuel to run cars.
Restaurants and convenience stores generally hand out disposable, wooden chopsticks without being asked. Japan’s 127 million inhabitants each use an average of 200 sets a year – equivalent to 90 000 tonnes of wood, according to government data. Some 90% of the chopsticks used in Japan are imported from China, and are made mostly from bamboo and aspen.
According to Japan’s forestry industry, chopsticks use timber from thinning operations that would otherwise have been dumped.