TOKYO - China's decision to raise prices
on its exports of wooden chopsticks is proving
something of a problem for Japanese restaurants
and the like, that have long offered them to
customers for free.
Chinese chopsticks are
now about 30% more expensive than they were four
months ago - and there are also plans for another
price increase, on the back of concerns about
deforestation and rising
production costs.
However, environmentalists hope the move
will prompt an overhaul of forest management in
Japan - while safeguarding forests elsewhere in
Asia.
"Forests in China and in Russia that
provide cheap wood for chopsticks for the Japanese
market need urgent protection. It is high time
Japan relied on its own forests for its
chopsticks," said Junichi Mishiba of the Japanese
chapter of Friends of the Earth, a
non-governmental organization.
At present,
about 500 million pairs of chopsticks are
manufactured in Japan, a fraction of the 24.8
billion pairs - waribashi, as they are
called - used each year. China provides almost 98%
of Japan's chopsticks, something officials ascribe
to the high cost of Japanese timber.
"Timber produced in Japan is exorbitant
compared to China. We are now putting our efforts
[into] producing more reasonably priced wood in
Japan where our forests are healthy and
overgrown," said Yoshimi Nakamoto, an official at
the Forestry Agency.
He noted that
government was also aiming to increase local
chopstick production and sell more
Japanese-manufactured waribashi through its
new "Awareness Movement" program, launched this
month.
Chopstick production in Japan is
currently one sixth of what it was a decade ago.
About 20% of Japanese forests, which consist
largely of cedar and pine, are being utilized at
present, mostly to produce timber for furniture.
In a landmark step Mini Mart, a chain of
convenience stores, has begun asking customers to
pay four US cents for a pair of Japanese-made
waribashi - the first company to do so in
the highly competitive trade. Activists estimate
that a pair of Chinese-made chopsticks costs less
than one US cent.
"Charging for disposable
chopsticks is not easy in the convenience store
world where convenience and cheap prices are our
lifeline," said Kimikazu Sugawara, spokesperson
for Mini Mart.
"In cooperation with the
government, we have been explaining to customers
that by paying for their waribashi, they
are helping to save Japan's forests. The results
have not been too adverse."
Still,
Sugawara acknowledged that the going was not easy,
and franchises in the chain are not obliged to
sell chopsticks.
"The customers are given
the choice of choosing free Chinese-made
<>waribashi or paying for Japanese ones.
On a good day we have about 20 people paying five
yen [four US cents] for a pair at a store, which
is less than 5% of the total number of customers,"
he explained.
Tellingly, other convenience
stores have not followed suit.
Ichiro
Fukuoka, spokesperson for the Japan Chopstick
Association and himself an importer of
waribashi, says Japan should continue to
look for cheap imports, such as chopsticks from
Vietnam. "There is no crisis as yet," he insisted.
The Japanese are often averse to using
chopsticks that others have eaten with, unlike in
South Korea, for instance, where steel chopsticks
are offered in restaurants rather than disposable
ones.
"I used to pull out my plastic or
bamboo chopsticks when going out for dinner and
was looked upon by others as being strange,
because people simply take it for granted that
free chopsticks are the norm," recalled Mariko
Sano, spokesperson for Green Consumer Network.
Indeed, the practice of offering customers
waribashi - some, in upscale restaurants,
wrapped in intricately decorated paper envelopes
that reflect the changing seasons - has become a
deep-rooted custom that will be hard to erase.
Nonetheless, Sano said more people are now
aware of the effect of disposable chopsticks on
forests, and the importance of forests in
controlling global warming - and that Japan should
take advantage of this by enacting laws that force
businesses to stop providing waribashi for
free.
Mishiba also believes that with
government working towards better management of
local forests, the drive to reduce chopstick
imports will get stronger.
