Shenzhen's Luohu District is working out supportive policies for
small eateries in the district that stop using disposable
chopsticks.
Recently, the district people's congress became the first to
pass a proposal that advocates a ban on disposable chopsticks, meal
boxes and plastics bags.
"Using disposable chopsticks means destroying a piece of
forest," said the proposal.
In its next move, the district government will issue supportive
documents to help the eateries to overcome any difficulties that
occurred during the process, said Liu Xueqiang, director of the
Standing Committee of the District People's Congress.
Shenzhen should have a long-term plan for setting up its new
outlook on energy consumption, he said.
In Shenzhen, many small restaurants and eateries use disposable
chopsticks. One Guilin rice noodle shop uses about 10,000 pairs of
chopsticks each month, according to a report in the Shenzhen
Evening News.
There are tens of thousands of such eateries in Shenzhen, which
use most of the disposable chopsticks in the city.
Statistics show that China consumes 45 billion pairs of
chopsticks, which is equivalent to 25 million trees, a year.
The proposal has received both favorable and unfavorable
responses from the catering sector.
"We prefer using disposable chopsticks," said Zhang Fan, deputy
manager of Miandianwang, a leading food chain store offering
northern Chinese delicacies.
She said all the 44 chain stores in the city offered disposable
chopsticks. If you use re-usable chopsticks, the patrons will
wonder whether the chopsticks have really been sterilized.
But another manager, Li Jiaqin, of a Sichuan-flavored restaurant
in Futian District said that it preferred using re-usable
chopsticks.
He denied that using re-usable chopsticks would raise costs for
the restaurant, even though they would need to buy disinfection
facilities.
(China Daily April 13, 2006)