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A famous Sichuan cuisine restaurant in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, recently asked its customers to pay for the disposable wooden chopsticks, arousing big controversies both locally and nationwide.

 

What did the charge aim at? Profit or environmental protection?

 

Many websites and newspapers have covered the issue and according to a report from People's Daily on December 12, the restaurant's manager, customers and experts on environmental protection stated their different opinions on this controversial affair.

 

Restaurant: For sanitation and environmental protection

 

The restaurant put up a poster, saying that guests bringing their own chopsticks could enjoy VIP discounts, but otherwise that a fee of one yuan (US$0.13) would be levied for each pair of disposable wooden chopsticks, together with a towel, napkin and toothpick.

 

The restaurant manager explained that the payment was for sanitation and environmental protection.

 

He revealed that several other restaurants in Hangzhou had also begun to charge for the disposable chopsticks, claiming it was a response to governmental requests for restricting the using of disposable chopsticks and protecting forests.

 

He added that usually the restaurant would provide free sterilized chopsticks, but that sometimes guests demanded the disposable ones due to sanitation risks. The restaurant didn't advocate this, so they added the fees to reduce the using frequency.

 

Another manager at a chain casserole restaurant in Hangzhou said the charge for disposable chopsticks would save forests resource and protect the environment, as well as reduce enterprises' operating costs.

 

Customers: Restaurants should offer healthy tableware

 

Most customers thought it should be the restaurant's responsibility to offer clean and healthy tableware for the guests.

 

Some are not used to carrying around their own chopsticks when going to the restaurant, nor to paying for cutlery. In an interview, Wang, a sales manager, said paying one yuan is not a big deal, but that it was not good practice. The restaurant should increase cleaning and sterilization efforts to reassure the guests on sanitation. To charge for disposable chopsticks is to pass on their responsibility to the guests.

 

Another citizen said if the restaurant manager was keen to protect the environment, instead of charging for fees, he should simply no longer provide chopsticks. Actually many people are not conscious to the resource waste, and thus think that one yuan for chopsticks is not cost-efficient.

 

Other customers thought the sanitation fee for chopsticks should have been included in the meal fee. The separate charge might be doubted as the repeated one. If it's not a commercial speculation, it would be the restaurant's method to obtain huge profit.

 

Experts: Good idea but not to be abused

 

When most people question the throwaway chopsticks fee, environmental protection experts have been more tolerant.

 

The leader of the China Semi-tropical Forest Industry Institute, Mr. Fu, said China is suffering from a tree shortage -- only 13.9 percent of its 9.6 million square kilometers is covered by forest, while it remains the world's largest exporter of disposable chopsticks. It fells 25 million trees a year to make 45 billion pairs. However, only two-thirds are used in China and few are recycled.

 

Throwaway chopsticks are now used in most restaurants throughout China, excepting either the very poor or very expensive establishments. The poor ones reuse bamboo chopsticks after cursory washing; the expensive ones prefer sanitized, lacquered-wood chopsticks. Fu said if the restaurants can charge for those disposable chopsticks, it would help save the woods and protect the environment and forest.

 

Professor Shen Aiguo of Zhejiang University said according to some news reports, foreign countries had begun charging for disposable chopsticks much earlier. However, no specifics were given as how this was carried out or on how to allocate the income. Nor did the report address the issues of separate consumption taxes or environmental protection taxes. To save the woodland is definitely a beneficial affair to all people, but how to deal with this regarding a chopsticks charge? The relevant administrative departments and the catering enterprises should make more efforts on it.

 

(China.org.cn by Zhou Jing, December 13, 2006)