For that amount you need to fell 100 trees with an average height of ten metres, said Cai Shiyan, a deputy of the National People s Congress. Throwaway chopsticks are now used in all but the poorest and the most expensive restaurants throughout China. The poor ones reuse bamboo chopsticks after cursory washing. The expensive ones prefer sanitized, lacquered-wood chopsticks. All the rest use disposable wooden chopsticks.
China is the biggest consumer, producer and exporter of chopsticks.
It fells 25 million trees a year to make 45 billion pairs. Two-thirds are used in China and few are recycled. But concern is growing over the environmental consequences. The Government is convinced that the devastating floods last summer, which killed more than 3,000 people, were caused by soil erosion due to excessive logging in river basins. Within weeks, the State Council banned logging and lumberjacks became planters in Sichuan Province.