By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, National Observer

Last February, Felix B枚ck picked up a shipping container sent express from Disneyland and stuffed with a precious load: Single-use chopsticks the company couldnB次元官网网址檛 use because of a package design error.

The load was the first hint of a wooden tsunami for B枚ck, CEO of ChopValue, a Vancouver-based company that recuperates single-use chopsticks to turn them into everything from desks to dominoes. Since its founding in 2016, the company has kept millions of chopsticks out of landfills an effort, B枚ck said, to reduce waste produced by restaurants.

B次元官网网址淲e are a circular economy franchise. We identified the humble chopstick as one of the imported, disposable consumer itemsB次元官网网址� ubiquitous in modern life, he said. B次元官网网址淲e thought it might be a really powerful tool to talk about underutilized resources and how much waste we have in our cities.B次元官网网址�

Pre-pandemic, well over 100,000 wooden utensils like chopsticks were discarded daily in Vancouver, according to a 2018 study by Metro Vancouver. Most had been used an average of 20 minutes B次元官网网址� after a roughly 9,000-kilometre journey from bamboo forests in China to restaurants in B.C.

Bamboo is among the worldB次元官网网址檚 most sustainable tree species, with coppices harvested in four-year rotations without destroying the treesB次元官网网址� root systems. But even that breakneck rate of regrowth canB次元官网网址檛 make single-use chopsticks sustainable, B枚ck said.

Keeping them out of the landfills B次元官网网址� where they decompose and produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas B次元官网网址� and extending their useful life was his focus. Working with restaurants, he set up recycling bins and a collection system to gather the chopsticks their customers used. The collected wood was then brought to local manufacturing facilities to be transformed into more valuable goods, or B次元官网网址渦pcycled.B次元官网网址�

Keeping those manufacturing facilities small and local is key, B枚ck said, as it allows more flexibility and provides local employment. ItB次元官网网址檚 a model he hopes will be imitated by others aiming to set up manufacturing businesses.

The idea took off, drawing considerable media attention and expanding to Victoria, Montreal, and Los Angeles. In each city, they set up a full collection and manufacturing hub to reduce the transportation costs and emissions, according to a 2019 report by the company.

As of Jan. 4, the company reported recycling well over 32 million chopsticks, and more than half of that since mid-2019. While the pandemic has decimated restaurants, it has been a boon for ChopValue B次元官网网址� and laid bare major flaws in the global chopstick supply chain, B枚ck said.

B次元官网网址淲e got in touch with all these big suppliers of chopsticks for the restaurant industryB次元官网网址� when the pandemic hit last spring with hopes to glean chopsticks left unused by hard-hit restaurants, B枚ck said. B次元官网网址淚magine these thousands of chopsticks that are all individually branded. You obviously donB次元官网网址檛 deliver these overload chopsticks B次元官网网址� which are perfectly fine chopsticks B次元官网网址� to another restaurant that is differently branded.B次元官网网址�

Without restaurant-goers to use them, those boxes of freshly manufactured chopsticks were destined for landfills.

New chopsticks are packaged in cardboard boxes lined with plastic, then each pair is protected by a small paper or plastic package, he said. Opening thousands of boxes of chopsticks to sort those materials and put them in the right waste stream B次元官网网址� recycling for plastic and cardboard, compost for wood B次元官网网址� is too much work. Had ChopValue not recuperated them, they would have probably ended up in a landfill.

Yet despite the surging business, B枚ck said the pandemic oversupply laid bare the vulnerabilities of the complex supply chains that move everything from chopsticks to carrots around the globe.

B次元官网网址淲hat we learned through this pandemic is logistics have challenges, especially when we have to re-evaluate costs or priority goods,B次元官网网址� he said. B次元官网网址淚t really, really interrupted so much of our supply chain. I hope there is a big transition B次元官网网址� (to) local manufacturing.B次元官网网址�

That could make it easier not only to recuperate and upcycle unused goods, as ChopValue has done but also allow for more control over whatB次元官网网址檚 produced in the first place. Our supply chains havenB次元官网网址檛 always been so global: CanadaB次元官网网址檚 chopsticks were produced here B次元官网网址� at a factory in Fort Nelson, B.C. B次元官网网址� until the late 1990s.

ItB次元官网网址檚 that vision B次元官网网址� more small, local manufacturers and less reliance on vulnerable global supply chains B次元官网网址� B枚ck hopes his chopsticks will inspire.

B次元官网网址淢y vision is to have mass manufacturing made local,B次元官网网址� he said.