Designers Pin Ning Huang, Mhyca Hsu and Shu Hsuan Peng designed a bench made of disposable bamboo chopsticks to call attention to the amount of waste generated.

Disposable chopsticks are very common, with 4.5 billion pairs used just in Taiwan each year. These chopsticks are used for a short time and then discarded. These large amount of discarded chopsticks has caused serious environmental problems.

Called Chopstikbench, the bench is made from 37,800 pairs of bamboo chopsticks. They were collected in one night at three night markets in Taiwan. Every single piece of chopstick was individually glued together with non-toxic adhesive. The resulting block was CNC cut into shape. The bench retains the original chopstick pattern that gives a strong image of the recycle mindset.

Photos via A’Design Award