“As shade elaine and i wonder… they aren’t really that much lighter, or take up that much less space…” I would actually argue that they take up MORE space with their fancy cases and such. And “eco-friendly”? Can you really be eco-friendlier than two sticks of bamboo? Talk about reinventing the wheel..? But really, I’m curious to hear about situations where these would be needed…

I’m reaching here, but since I bought some of these a few weeks ago… Imagine having a pair of chopstics in your pocket. It’s hard to sit down with full size ones, this way you can sit in a chair and still have some chopsticks in your pants.
(Though if you are carrying food… yes, it’s a stretch)

Where are the telescoping toy light saber ones!

The travel chopsticks are very eco-friendly. Saving the the two sticks of bamboo, and hopefully the bamboo tree.

These are pretty cool, but I bought the Telescoping Chopsticks from EverythingChopsticks. You just can’t get more awesome than that. :P

http://www.everythingchopsticks.com/product_info.php?products_id=273&osCsid=698a271e8cb890c87e469889f5f2ef3d

Great info here. I’d been looking for a travel pair of chopsticks for a while, but I didn’t know which brands or styles were actually going to be worth the money. Now at least I have something to work with. As for question of “why?”…I was specifically looking for something that didn’t have a great deal of length on them when packing with my bento lunches. The added width isn’t a problem since the little bento bags are more than wide enough; it was the length that always created a problem.

There are several reasons why one would use one of these “eco-friendly” chopsticks. First, in the past few years, there has been much commotion over the safety of disposable bamboo chopsticks. In Taiwan they tested samples from all the disposable chopstick manufactures and found that the amount of Sulfer Dioxide (used to bleach the chopsticks) were at alarming levels that were harmful to the body. Addtionally, there were incidents where disposable chopsticks were reused/repackaged. All this led the current trend of carrying your own chopsticks. If you go to asian countries like Taiwan, it won’t be uncommon for people to bring their own portable chopsticks to diners and eateries. Secondly, these would be considered eco-friendly in the sense that you would be saving bamboo trees from the unfortunate demise of being cut up for disposable chopsticks. If you can save a tree by not using paper bags and bringing your own, why not save a few bamboo trees by bringing your own chopsticks. I hope this has been informative and will explain why these portable chopsticks are not “reinventing the wheel”. On a personal note, I’m hard pressed to choose between #2 and #4. Anyone have experience with any of these?

Wonderful travel chopsticks…I have some in my collection and they get used. But I wouldn’t worry about chopping down some bamboo for chopsticks… It’s not a tree…. it’s a grass, and there is lots of bamboo over the world, and it grows very, very quickly.