It is endearing to know that governments around the world are concerned about the environment. Certain departments go that extra mile and take measures to do something positive as well. Here's the scene with Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; they are soon going to fit bins across Japan to collect all the disposable (wooden) chopsticks that the citizens discard and recycle it to bio-fuel. On an average we are talking about 200 sets disposed annually by a population of 127 million people resulting in 90,000 tons of wood to be recycled. Ministry officials feel that they will be able to negate the effects of the "greenhouse gas emissions, of the process of collecting the chopsticks, carrying them to facilities and then producing the biofuel."

Quite a knee-jerk reaction considering the fact that Japan imports 90% of the chopsticks that they consume. Anyhow, Japan also sees this as a way of reducing its reliance on imported oil. The trial of recycling chopsticks wood to fuel is likely to take the chopsticks to ethanol-producing facilities in Osaka and Okayama prefectures. Some chopsticks maybe processed together with waste paper, to produce a wood pellet fuel. Japan has 30 such plants, which can do this pelletisation.
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