The New Biofuel – Old Chopsticks?

In Japan meals are consumed with chopsticks everyday. Some with fancy ones and many with disposable wooden chopsticks. Now there are people in Japan who want to turn those throw away chopsticks into the next biofuel option. We all know there is heated debate about ethanol going on right now. Making ethanol out of corn and other mass produced crops has many shortfalls that our leaders don’t want to admit. However finding fuel uses for throw away items like chopsticks seems intriguing.

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Japan plans to turn millions of discarded wooden chopsticks into biofuels to supply the country’s power stations.

Restaurants and cafes in the country hand out the disposable implements to all their customers, with each person throwing away an average of 200 pairs a year.

The Japanese government says in a nation of 127 million people, that amounts to 90,000 tons of wood going to waste.

Japan has few natural energy resources of its own, and to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil it is examining the possibility of converting chopsticks into fuel.