Innovative Ways to Recycle: Chopstick Sail Boat

Hey everyone I’m back at it again only this time I’ve decided to start a new series that shows the extent of human ingenuity in the way they use materials around them that just also happen to be sustainable. Check out these this cool cat.

1) Shuhei Ogawara and His Canoe Made From Disposable Chopsticks

Canoe made of chopsticks --

A former city employee in the Fukushima prefecture town of Koriyama has built a 4-meter (13-ft) long canoe from thousands of used disposable chopsticks recovered from the city hall cafeteria. Bothered that perfectly good wood was going to waste after a single use, Shuhei Ogawara — whose job at city hall involved working with the local forestry industry — spent the last two years of his career collecting used chopsticks from the cafeteria. An experienced canoe builder, Ogawara spent over 3 months gluing 7,382 chopsticks together into strips to form the canoe shell, to which he added a polyester resin coat. The canoe weighs about 30 kilograms (66 lbs), which is a bit heavier than an ordinary cedar canoe, but Ogawara is confident it will float. A launching ceremony is planned for May at nearby Lake Inawashiro.

[Source: Asahi]

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