globalize the way we eat! save the trees

February 14, 2001 1:28 PM

globalize the way we eat! save the trees The Chinese, it seems, are destroying their trees for thow away chopsticks and there is building concern that they should recycle their eating utensils. Why not globalize and we can all simply use our hands?
posted by Postroad (3 comments total)

A friend who worked in China recently says all the restaurants hand out their food in styrofoam clamshells, and when you're done you're supposed to stick your chopsticks through them. Otherwise they'll be fished out of the trash, rinsed ... and given to the next customer.
posted by dhartung at 7:23 PM on February 14, 2001

The sides of China's railways are litered with those styrofoam boxes and plastic bags. Once when I was riding a train in China, I had collected all of my garbage (from my lunch, etc) into a plastic bag and hung it by the window intending to throw it in a trash can when I got to the station. The cleaning woman came by, saw my little garbage bag and chucked it out the window. A lot of attitudes remain to be changed in China. But younger people there tend to be better educated than the previous generation. Things are changing there.
posted by Loudmax at 10:07 PM on February 14, 2001

I had exactly the same experience in Colombia. I was shocked by the easy and indifference people would throw trash into the most beautiful naturre reserves.
posted by pedro at 6:07 AM on February 15, 2001