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China: Tax on chopsticks

China will introduce a tax on chopsticks.

I’ve filed this in the absurd taxes category, but it may not be that absurd.

Disposable chopsticks used up 1.3 million cubic metres of timber each year, depleting the country’s forests, the ministry said.

The move was aimed at “promoting environmental protection and economising on resources while better guiding the production and consumption of certain products,” the ministry said on its website www.mof.gov.cn.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 1st, 2006 at 4:45 pm and is filed under Absurd Taxes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “China: Tax on chopsticks”

  1. david@tokyo Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 12:41 pm

    No, indeed not that absurd at all.

    Here in Japan disposable wooden chopsticks are all over the place.

    On the one hand, Japan is doing places like Indonesia a favour by buying heaps of pulp (aiding development in those countries), but on the other hand it’s bringing about ecosystem destruction, seeing native elephants for example find themselves squeezed, and off they run into local villages and eat crops.

    Unfortuntately for the elephants, currently the local people see less value in them than they do in cutting down the forests. If anyone knows how they could conserve their environment and develop their economy at the same time, please let them know.

  2. Aaron Bhatnagar Says:
    May 2nd, 2006 at 2:12 pm

    David – I think its called tourism. :-)

    I presume that in China plastic chopsticks will not be taxed, certainly I’m hoping there won’t be a jump towards ivory.

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