Chopstick Canoe

Posted by gail in Gadget on April 7, 2008 at 7:50 am


chopstick

Pink Tentacle reports:


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.



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COMMENT

19 comments to "Chopstick Canoe"

  1. b°b
    April 7th, 2008 at 8:22 am

    Pfah, a canoe, amateurs… what about a vikingship (!) made from popsiclesticks? It went on a journey from Holland to Amerika yesterday http://www.nu.nl/news/1513351/122/rss/IJsstokjesboot_vertrokken_naar_A merika.html
    (site is in Dutch, sorry, but the pictures speak for themselves)

  2. Geek's Dream Girl
    April 7th, 2008 at 8:27 am

    Wow! That’s totally cool! My dad built a canoe out of strips of wood when I was a kid, but CHOPSTICKS? Now that’s unique!

  3. Becky
    April 7th, 2008 at 8:53 am

    the popsicle vikingship IS pretty aweome . . .

  4. Ali S.
    April 7th, 2008 at 11:54 am

    Matchstick Canoe vs. Viking Popsicle Ship. This is epic! :D

  5. OddNumber
    April 7th, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    This is pretty cool! However, I would have a hard time justifying “dumpster diving” for chop sticks on a daily basis. I’ll stick with shopping at REI.

  6. ohohkimber
    April 7th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

    Tastes like soysauce!!!

  7. empty-minded
    April 7th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

    This is a very cool look. I think it was worth it.

  8. sHandke
    April 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

    This is an absolutely amazing use for recycling others’ trash. It’s what I love to do, but I haven’t built anything this incredible yet. All of my stuff is simply artwork! Great work!

  9. ihateallex
    April 7th, 2008 at 2:14 pm

    This was such a good idea. It probably was the most tedious task ever, but dang, that’s cool.

  10. Kim
    April 7th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    Creative, useful, and the chopsticks really made for a lovely overall appearance! I’ve definitely gotta hand it to the guy; this is a fantastic piece of work.

  11. CheeseDuck
    April 7th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    Seriously? I’d rather have a popsicle stick Viking ship than a chopstick canoe.

  12. liphttam1
    April 7th, 2008 at 3:03 pm

    whats next a toothpick Kyack……. Hmmm Ill get to work right away!!!

  13. Oomi
    April 7th, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    Very cool. Someone needs to try toothpicks now!

  14. Kathy
    April 7th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    Was the Viking ship made from used popsicle sticks? It’s really admirable that Fukushima found a novel way to recycle all those chopsticks.

  15. kid_icarus
    April 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

    that is AWESOME!!!!! way to reuse trash to make something of beauty.

  16. b°b
    April 8th, 2008 at 7:57 am

    the Vikingship wasn’t from used popsicles, that indeed is the downside to that story. However, someone somewhere else on the big wide internets pointed out that the polyester coat on the chopstick-canoe makes it totally environmentally UNfriendly.

  17. b°b
    April 8th, 2008 at 7:59 am

    @liphttam1: a toothpick canoe? what about a full scale F1 car made of… matchsticks? http://www.hemmy.net/2008/02/27/full-scale-matchstick-f1-car/

  18. fsmarch
    April 8th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    WOW!!!!

  19. su.wei
    April 8th, 2008 at 3:32 pm

    this is way cooler than the toothpick boat.


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