hardboiled

the waribashi project: san francisco...

by lauren morimoto

A trip to San Francisco Japantown is hardly complete without stopping for a bite to eat. From ramen to sushi, Japantown provides a cornucopia of delicious cuisine. But have you ever wondered what happens to your wooden chopsticks after you are done eating your meal?

Donna Ozawa asked the same question early in 2005 and found the used chopsticks, or waribashi, to “pose a great problem to our environment through deforestation and destruction of forest habitats.” Thus, the inspiration for the Waribashi Project: San Francisco began, where Ozawa sought to “examine the disposable chopstick as an artistic, cultural and environmental subject.”

With the aid of the Columbia and LEF Foundations, the Japanese Community and Cultural Center of Northern California, and restaurants in San Francisco’s Japantown, 180,000 waribashi were collected, cleaned, and air-dried. With these, Ozawa created new sculptures and installations for an Waribashi Project exhibition in June 2005. The project gained publicity at several public events, including the United Nations World Environment Day 2005 and Japantown’s Nihonmachi Street Fair in August 2005. Last September and October 2005, Ozawa’s showcased her new work through a personal exhibition.

Ozawa stresses the importance of chopsticks in Asian and Asian American cultures. Used from a ceremonial basis to the everyday, chopsticks have existed for over 5,000 years, representing sustenance and history. As Ozawa notes, “For Asian Americans, they represent the strengths of our ancestors and our cultural inheritance.” As for waribashi in particular, the disposable chopsticks are a symbolic icon of the modern, pan-Asian, consumerist society. In the 1870s, waribashi originated as a creative method for using scrap wood materials. Contrast this trend to today, where Japan is the world’s largest consumer of rainforest wood, and waribashi make up Japan’s second leading cause of wood consumption; 130 million pairs are produced per day, and roughly 11 billion pairs per year.

Through the Waribashi Project, Ozawa hoped to encourage awareness of environmental issues and cultural practices. Her proposal to an alternative for waribashi is to carry your own non-disposable set that comes with a carrying case. She also recommends re-using waribashi as aids in the garden or use with art projects. The East Bay Depot for Creative Use and the Scroungers’ Center for Reusable Art Parts (SCRAP) are places geared towards creatively re-using items. Other single-use products such as Popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, coffee stir-sticks, and plastic ice cream spoons also cause environmental damage and can be dropped off at these reuse centers.

Nonetheless, the Waribashi Project discouragingly ended toward the end of 2005. Despite popular appeal for Ozawa’s exhibits, no restaurants in Japantown have tried to amend their recycling habits. The Japantown Center could “save over 25% on their garbage bill” if they implemented suggested recycling methods. Ozawa even notes that the Japantown mall does not have any recycling bins for bottles and cans at all. Overall, Ozawa concluded, “I can’t force anyone to change, but you can imagine how frustrating it is after all the work, fundraising, artmaking…”

Ozawa’s project applies to our very own campus as well. Nearly 20 years ago, the city of Berkeley banned Styrofoam. In June, Oakland followed in Berkeley’s footsteps and banned Styrofoam as well. Berkeley is one of the most environmental-friendly cities in the country, so one cannot help but wonder, what’s next? Could the city of Berkeley pick up on Ozawa’s statement and ban disposable wooden chopsticks as well? When asked about hypothetical campuswide and citywide bans on chopsticks, UC Berkeley sophomore Nick Brown seemed reluctant to support such a proposition. “People do use them and it’d be wrong to ban it,” Brown argues, “Berkeley has too high of an Asian population to ban an important aspect to Asian culture.” Kik Inouye, Brown’s friend and a fellow UC Berkeley sophomore, disagreed. “Banning disposable chopsticks in restaurants alone would be fine,” replied Inouye. “It would be like eating at a Chinese restaurant with plastic chopsticks; it’s the same as using metal forks.”

The environmental debate over banning waribashi in Berkeley could be the next big thing for eager, optimistic eyes, but Donna Ozawa who tried to make it a reality, concludes, “I feel like I have been holding the reality of this project on my own. I think the Japanese American community’s inertia on this and so many issues is enough to make this homegirl run screaming.”