Chopstick boat for choppy waters

Those Zany Japanese people

Shuhei Ogawara, a retired city hall employee in the Fukushima Prefecture, spent three months gluing 7382 used chopsticks into a 66 pound, 13'-4" canoe, and coated it with a polyester resin coat. I don't know if I would want to run it down the Nahanni, but it looks pretty good. Launch is planned for May at Lake Inawahiro

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/canoe-built-from-chopsticks.php

"Hashi" can mean either chopstick, or bridge, depending on context. Guess this guy got confused about using it to cross water.

Japan gets through about 25 billion - yes, billion - sets of disposable chopsticks per year. That's about four per person per week.

I'm pretty sure we've had this photo before in the Cellar.

Ah, here it is.

ZenGum;676603 wrote:

"Hashi" can mean either chopstick, or bridge, depending on context. Guess this guy got confused about using it to cross water.

Japan gets through about 25 billion - yes, billion - sets of disposable chopsticks per year. That's about four per person per week.

25 billion / 7382 = 3,386,616 canoes. I wonder if the country is planning another sneaky, underhanded sea invasion? The evidence is damming

HungLikeJesus;676629 wrote:

I'm pretty sure we've had this photo before in the Cellar.

Ah, here it is.

Must have been during my leave of absence.

squirell nutkin;676654 wrote:

25 billion / 7382 = 3,386,616 canoes. I wonder if the country is planning another sneaky, underhanded sea invasion? The evidence is damming

Does someone have a conversion chart for the U.S. so we'll know how many toothpicks we'll need for our fleet of destroyers?

ZenGum;676603 wrote:

"Hashi" can mean either chopstick, or bridge, depending on context. Guess this guy got confused about using it to cross water.

Japan gets through about 25 billion - yes, billion - sets of disposable chopsticks per year. That's about four per person per week.

How many tree equiv. do they throw away each year?

Chopsticks are made from the Chop tree, and I understand the rare Chop forests are decimated.

I like the bamboo ones best.

TheMercenary;676674 wrote:

How many tree equiv. do they throw away each year?

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/01/bring_your_own.php

A Chinese blog claims that 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks are tossed out yearly in China, contributing to deforestation and mounds of unnecessary waste. The blog also claims that Japan has outlawed the cutting of bamboo for disposable chopsticks, so China has begun exporting large amounts to Japan. Stimuli for the spreading movement of bring-your-own culture is coming from different directions. One company boss even introduced a rule that all employees must bring their own sticks to the office—fining them if they don’t.
For more info on bring-your-own culture in the States, check out our friend Anna’s site, bringyourown.org. And if people have more leads on bring-your-own movements, please drop me a line.

I read some years ago, Japan was buying a shitload of Birch from Michigan and Minnesota, for chopsticks. Probably a more permanent kind than Bamboo.