Canadian startup ChopValue has embodied the saying âone manâs trash is another manâs treasureâ by turning old, used chopsticks into furniture and home decor.
A small start: The idea came to Felix Böck after his partner Thalia Otamendi suggested starting with something as small as chopsticks, according to The Guardian.
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- At the time, Böck was a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia who was hoping to recycle waste wood from demolition and construction sites.
- With Otamendiâs suggestion in mind, he eventually created ChopValue, a startup that aims to recycle chopsticks from restaurants, houses and schools to turn them into something useful. Now, the startup has managed to recycle and transform over 47 million chopsticks âthat otherwise would have ended up in the landfill,â according to its website.
- âOur resource is what others may view as waste â that means we donât take virgin materials from our environment,â ChopValue wrote. âEvery chopstick is perfect, slender, and defect free, making them ideal to develop an innovative engineered material.â
- The startup incorporates heat, steam and pressure in recycling chopsticks sourced from different locations and turning them into wooden tiles. ChopValue also made sure that all chopsticks were âthoroughly cleaned and disinfected during production.â
- ChopValue said that it had collected more than 350,000 a week in Metro Vancouver alone.
- Some of the homeware ChopValue has already made include a wooden workstation, staircases and wall decor.
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Going global: ChopValue has expanded its effort across North America and in the United Kingdom and Singapore, Gizmodo reported. The startup has struck a partnership with Return-It in North Vancouver, British Columbia, and it is reportedly eyeing to launch in Australia next.
- âThis partnership with ChopValue is a great example of how we can leverage our collection network to divert material from landfill and support innovative companies that share our interest in developing a more circular economy where materials are reused rather than disposed of,â Allen Langdon, Return-Itâs president and CEO, said in a statement.
- Uber Eats’ 2021 Cravings Report, released in early November, revealed that Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and âAsianâ were among the most popular cuisines Canadians ordered at home this year. All of these cuisines offer chopsticks as their mealâs main eating utensils.
Other details: ChopValue explained in its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page that composting is out of the question since it âgenerally will emit the embodied carbon content of the chopsticks back into the airâ as carbon dioxide.Â
- The start-up added that since chopsticks are made out of bamboo, a fast-growing grass, they are reportedly one of the âbest materials to use for carbon sequestration.â
- âComposting would still be the last resort of circular solutions,â ChopValue wrote. âIn general, recovery of energy or nutrients is the last cascade in the circular cycle. On the other hand we are taking the material to the highest and best cascade, where we increase the value of the material exponentially.â
Featured Image via @chopvalue