Recently Wagamama’s re-started their BOGOF offers, yay, so after work today Jenny and I dropped in at the Earl’s Court branch for a quick bite to eat. This was another opportunity to use the “travel” chopsticks that Stephen got me for Christmas. He had bought the chopsticks from a girl at his work in Australia who is part of a group concerned with trying to contribute in their own way to saving the environment. The group sounds kind of like a cross between Greenpeace and Avon with activities including approaching businesses on the Gold Coast with suggestions on how they can contribute to conservation efforts (including encouraging tea shops to recycle their plastic cups) to selling “green” products such as these “travel” chopsticks to use in place of the disposable wooden ones offered in many restaurants (including suprisingly posh restaurants such as Yauatcha!) and take-aways.

There are arguments on both sides for whether disposable chopsticks contribute to deforestation – on the one hand some claim that hundreds of acres forests are chopped down every day to supply the wood and others say that the wood comes from trees that regenerate quickly and that the production of them creates many jobs.

Its hard to imagine that these small wooden measuring maybe up to 30cm in length and 5-8mm in diameter could equal the killing of hundreds of acres of trees every day but when you do the math – let’s say a third the world’s population (2 billion) use a pair of disposable chopsticks once each week for a year that’s 104 billion chopsticks being used or about 123 million acres of wood a year wasted (if my calcs are correct.) Astonishing numbers.

So, even though I may feel a bit conscious about pulling out my silver chopsticks to use in place of the disposable ones being offerred I’ll do it knowing that I’m taking at least one small step in greening our world.