With a keen eye for conservation and creativity, Eugene local Bryan Parks has single-handedly found a use for used chopsticks.
Millions of wooden chopsticks that once headed straight for the landfills in China have now been given a new purpose. In 2000, Parks quit his job and decided he wanted to travel. Admiring the culture and languages of China, he decided to study Chinese in southern China for nearly two years.
Busy absorbing his new surroundings, it wasn’t until the middle of his stay that he recognized that a utensil as simple as chopsticks could provide a foundation for a business.
One day, Parks was out to lunch at a restaurant when he looked around and noticed everyone was using single-use bamboo chopsticks. He began to wonder exactly how many single-use chopsticks people go through in a single year in China. He thought the number would be something outrageous, and after some Internet research, he found that number was in fact quite alarming. When Parks discovered that, according to many estimates, some 25 million trees and bamboo plants were cut down each year, he felt compelled to take action.
“A lot of restaurants throw chopsticks out onto the streets after one use,” Parks said. “I thought about those numbers a few months later and thought I can actually make products out of chopsticks.”
One night Parks decided to walk around to a few restaurants and salvage used chopsticks out of their dumpsters. He collected hundreds of utensils, cleaned them and brought them back to his apartment where he began to experiment for months.
“I sat in my apartment for months just seeing what I could make,” Parks said. “I just kept trying different ways to connect the sticks together. I didn’t mention what I was doing to a single person. I literally thought people would think I was crazy.”
Although Parks never studied architecture or anything in the field of design, he has always loved putting things together. He recalls his love for building things and making inventions as a child. Little did Parks know his childhood hobby would inspire him to make a career out of chopsticks.
Lamp shades, waste baskets, baskets, necklaces and handbags are just a few of the many products that Parks was able to create with thousands of discarded chopsticks. Since moving back to the U.S. in 2003, Parks began attending trade shows to market his sustainable chopstick products, and he started his own business called Kwytza Chopstick Art, derived from kwytza, the Chinese word for chopsticks.
Part of Parks’ business is still run in China where he has people collecting chopsticks for him and assembling his designs. When Parks invents a new product, he goes to China to show his workers how to make it. Parks said he is constantly in pursuit of creating new things and visits China often to oversee his employees.
“I like to come up with a good design and then have it replicated many times,” Parks said. “I consider myself an artist entrepreneur, but not like a regular artist.
Artists make every piece themselves, and they are never all the same. I enjoy design but have little interest in sitting and putting each design together.”
As long as there are used chopsticks in China, Parks said he plans to continue creating products and marketing them wherever he can.
However, Parks said there may be some challenges with government restrictions on chopsticks in the near future that may bring his business to a stand still.
“The only uncertainly is that the Chinese government has been cracking down on single-use chopsticks,” Parks said. “It might come to the point that I wouldn’t be able to get enough chopsticks, and that could be a circumstance that could force me to stop.”
Parks said that although he has created dozens of products, his favorite and best selling are his foldable baskets.
“First of all, I like all of my products. My house is something like a chopstick museum because of course I keep one of everything I have created,” Parks said.
“However, these baskets are something people can use every day. They are both practical and artistic. They come in four sizes and are very functional. I mean, everyone uses baskets.”
Down To Earth, a local manufacturer of natural and organic fertilizers and housewares, has carried Park’s chopstick art for a few years. Carol Watkins, the housewares purchaser for Down to Earth, said the store strives to carry things that are either biodegradable or recyclable such as the Kwytza chopstick products.
“The foldable baskets are a little more expensive than mass produced products,” Watkins said. “However, they are extremely well constructed and are really good quality. They are much stronger than other bamboo products that I have seen.”
Stores all over the U.S. carry Kwytza chopstick products, and Parks also sells his items from his online store. Parks says places that carry his products usually carry environmentally friendly or sustainable products.
Pico’s Worldwide in Jacksonville, Ore., is a fair trade business that recently began carrying Park’s chopstick products. Pico’s employee Skylar Suste said that so far, they are hot sellers.
“Our store looks for recycled and organic products, and the chopstick products are something fun we like to carry,” Suste said. “We sell the different-sized baskets, and I think it’s a great idea and an artistic way of creating something sustainable.”
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