Well, it was only a matter of time. The campaign against plastic supermarket bags went well, and there are other policies out there targeting cigarette smoking, littering, and so on. Let’s face it, we go through an awful lot of those wooden, disposable chopsticks, and there’s no need for it.

This month saw a rash of new campaigns aimed at reducing consumption of petroleum, electricity, and water. So why not something for the trees?

Companies making disposable chopsticks will face local government restrictions aimed at decreasing the use of the throwaway utensils, according to a joint circular issued here Wednesday.

The production, circulation and recycling of disposable chopsticks should be more strictly supervised, stated the circular issued by the Ministry of Commerce and five other ministries and government administrations.

It said restaurants should prioritize offering diners with clean recyclable chopsticks rather than disposable ones.

Calls have been growing in recent years to stop the use of disposable chopsticks.

In the grand scheme of things, this is not an important new law, but please keep in mind just how many disposable chopsticks we blow through in China:

Though the government has never released statistics on disposable chopsticks consumption, some estimate 45 billion pairs are used and thrown away every year — equivalent to 25 million fully grown trees.

Impressive, huh? Moreover, I’m actually spending precious blog time on this minor issue because the new campaign might actually have an effect on everyone’s daily life, just like the plastic bag rules.

One more thing. If the government is serious about this, they may have to revisit this issue regarding restaurants and fees for sterilized chopsticks. I wrote about that a couple months ago over at China/Divide in a post about whiny people that complain about being charged an extra 1 RMB for sterilized chopsticks and other assorted tableware.

If the wooden chopsticks get phased out, then the price of dinner just went up, albeit slightly. No doubt there will be outrage over this.