飲食店などで使用した竹割り箸を回収し、それを使ってさまざまな家具を作っている村上勇一さん。飲食店で働いていた際、宴会後に大量に捨てられている割り箸を目の当たりにし、割り箸を木材として再生できないかと考え、取り組みを開始。割り箸の中でも、繊維が硬く再利用することが難しいとされる竹製に着目。この取り組みを通して、竹割り箸を分別処分することで循環が生まれるシステムを作りたいと語る村上さんの思い描く未来とは？
Mr. Yuichi Murakami gathers and makes furniture out of disposable bamboo chopsticks which are used in restaurants and such. He started this initiative after working in a restaurant and seeing many chopsticks being thrown away after parties, which made him wonder if the chopsticks couldn’t be reused as a wood material. He dared to focus on bamboo because bamboo disposable chopsticks have tough fibers which makes them difficult to reuse. Through this initiative, Mr. Murakami says he wants to create a system that will recycle disposable bamboo chopsticks by separating them when thrown away. What kind of future does he envision?
