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Investigating a replacement for disposable chopsticks

University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

Forests are overexploited for many purposes (food, medicine, shelter, and commercial use). Every year, 25 million trees a year are cut down in China or around 100 acres every 24 hours. Deforestation has led to environmental crises such as soil erosion, flooding, landslides, foot shortages, carbon dioxide abundance, and the extinction of species. One of the main contributors to this deforestation is the mass production of disposable wooden chopsticks. An astonishing 57 billion pairs of these chopsticks are produced annually in China alone, the equivalent of about 3.8 million trees. People are using these chopsticks because they are the least expensive option, and they are not recycling them because it costs more to do so than it does to throw them away. UBC has committed to their vision of sustainability. As a consequence of the new Student Union Building being developed at UBC, there has arisen an opportunity to install a vending machine filled with sustainable products to help UBC students strive towards this vision. Reusable chopsticks are such a product, and it is with this in mind that a triple-bottom line analysis was conducted to determine the expectation and viability of such an endeavor. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Text

University of British Columbia. APSC 262; UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0108550

Applied Science, Faculty of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/