By MARI YAMAGUCHI
TOKYO May 12, 2006 (AP)— Walk into any Japanese noodle shop or restaurant and chances are you'll be eating with a pair of disposable wooden chopsticks from China but not for long. In a move that has cheered environmentalists but worried restaurant owners, China has slapped a 5 percent tax on the chopsticks over concerns of deforestation.
The move is hitting hard at the Japanese, who consume a tremendous
25 billion sets of wooden chopsticks a year about 200 pairs per person. Some 97 percent of them come from China.
Chinese chopstick exporters have responded to the tax increase and a rise in other costs by slapping a 30 percent hike on chopstick prices with a planned additional 20 percent increase pending.
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Until the 1980s, about half the disposable chopsticks used in Japan were produced by Japanese companies. But that changed with the introduction of far cheaper Chinese-produced ones.
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http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=195514025 BILLION?? How much cellolosic ethanol would that make? If they were made from Japanese-grown bamboo, that would be an interesting "use twice" approach.