Sticking it to China
A factory in rural Georgia helps East Asia eat

ASK someone to write down all the differences between China and rural Georgia and his hand will fall off before he’s halfway done. So let us restrict ourselves to the vista: cranes, skyscrapers, spanking new rail networks and smog: China. Barbecue restaurants, red clay and trees: Georgia. And whereas most rural Georgians are surviving quite well, thank you, without skyscrapers and subways, Chinese diners, who go through billions of disposable wooden chopsticks each year, could use a few more trees.

Enter Georgia Chopsticks. Jae Lee, a former scrap-metal exporter, saw an opportunity and began turning out chopsticks for the Chinese market late last year. He and his co-owner, David Hughes, make their chopsticks from poplar and sweet-gum trees, which have the requisite flexibility and toughness, and are abundant throughout Georgia.

In May Georgia Chopsticks moved to larger premises in Americus, a location that offered room to grow, inexpensive facilities and a willing workforce. Sumter County, of which Americus is the seat, has an unemployment rate of more than 12%. Georgia Chopsticks now employs 81 people turning out 2m chopsticks a day. By year’s end Mr Lee and Mr Hughes hope to increase their workforce to 150, and dream of building a “manufacturing incubator” to help foreign firms take advantage of Georgia’s workforce and raw materials.

But that is some way off. For now Messrs Lee and Hughes, and their workers, keep busy shearing, steaming, shaving, cutting and drying huge logs into rough chopsticks. They still need to be finished—to eat with a pair of Georgia Chopsticks right off the Americus line you would need tweezers in your other hand and a high pain tolerance. For that they are shipped via the Port of Savannah to China (later this year they will start sending them to Korea and Japan) in boxes with a rare and prestigious stamp: Made in the USA.

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“Se acabó el ser un país que vende solamente materias primas. Cualquier industrialización ha de ser en Bolivia”

en algunas partes los madereros acabaron con los árboles sin que los indígenas lo denunciaran.

El presidente se refirió de nuevo a EEUU para afirmar que... “será pronto una colonia de China, que lidera el desarrollo industrial”.

Iniciado por Ruso

MODE ECOLOGISTA[ON]

Menudo gasto en madera con tantos palillos desechables para comer. Como se extienda por toda Asia con la de millones de personas que son, no damos abasto.

Annual per capita consumption jumped from 0.59 kg in 1990 to 2.95 kg last year, more than 400 percent growth over 19 years.

"China has become the world's second-largest household paper consuming nation, next only to the US, and is expected to be the largest within a few years," said Jiang.


Among the top domestic sellers were Hengan of Fujian province, and Guangdong-based Vinda and Zhongshun. The foreign brands of Kimberly-Clark and APP were also among the top 15 in 2008.

In addition to toilet paper, Chinese consumers are using more facial tissues, sanitary napkins, diapers and paper towels.

"The new buying trend indicates that more and more Chinese consumers, especially younger urbanites, are embracing a modern lifestyle," said Song Ying of Shanghai ACNielsen Co Ltd.

Economists and market analysts agreed that the number of well-off urbanites is expanding rapidly in China.

A report from banking group BNP Paribas predicted that the number of middle-class families in China will exceed 100 million by 2010, while US investment bank Merrill Lynch forecast that China's middle-class population would reach 350 million by 2015.

Based on these demographic projections, analysts expected particularly rapid increases in the demand for heavy-duty kitchen paper towels and adult diapers.

Paper towels gained popularity in developed countries decades ago. They were introduced to China at the end of last decade, and rapidly gained popularity among young urbanites.

Mr Bean Teddy Bear
Mr Bean Teddy Bear

A ver si lo adivináis, venga...


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...y sin papel de wc

¿Con qué?

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