Watch: Dubai expat to build mini Burj Khalifa using 2 million chopsticks

Dubai-based businessman Charles Jabbour is on a mission to boost recycling and up-cycling one chopstick at a time. He plans to spare millions of disposable wooden utensils from going to landfills with projects that give them a second life as new, practical products.
And to demonstrate just how many disposable chopsticks a big city like Dubai gets through, a replica of the Burj Khalifa is being constructed at The Arbor School, Al Furjan, led by students, with help from teachers, parents, and Jabbour's team.
The Burj Bambusa Project, as it has been named by the school, will result in what is being touted as a potential record-breaker: the world's tallest structure made entirely from recycled bamboo chopsticks.
'We are using close to two million chopsticks, which I believe is about the equivalent number used at restaurants in a week in Dubai,' the 57-year-old Lebanese entrepreneur told Khaleej Times over the weekend.
He views the project as a powerful symbol of circular economy principles, environmental innovation, and community engagement, and says the six-metre tower will raise awareness of the vast amount of reusable materials thrown away daily by hundreds of UAE restaurants.
Jabbour and his team started collecting chopsticks from restaurants around Dubai 18 months ago and have since harvested at least two million to be repurposed to make attractive items such as 'climate-positive' furniture. He started a franchise, ChopValue, a global circular economy brand headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, and set up a micro-factory in Dubai under his company Art & Culture LLC.
The Arbor School, meanwhile, prides itself on its focus on ecological literacy and sustainability, and on embedding compassion and curiosity into the fabric of the curriculum.
So students have been directly involved in various stages of the project, including constructing chopstick bundles and conducting waste audits, evaluating the design of the structure, calculating environmental impact, and documenting the process.
Since embarking on his campaign, Jabbour has partnered with popular restaurant chains The Noodle House and Wagamama, plus Radisson Blu Hotel, Dubai Deira Creek, whose staff gather chopsticks used by customers for collection by Jabbour's team.
'As it currently stands, the majority of chopsticks in restaurants are used once and then thrown out,' Jabbour noted. 'This represents a tragic waste of resources, including wood, energy, and water, but also represents a great opportunity.'
Jabbour and ChopValue intend to prevent about 250 tonnes of chopsticks per year locally from going to landfill. They will turn them into attractive items through a carbon-neutral, community-based production model, and give these humble wooden implements a new lease of life.
Once clean of food and liquids, the chopsticks and wooden utensils can be engineered to form fresh items such as tables, chopping boards and coasters, thereby saving on carbon emissions and resources used in creating products from raw materials.
'This way, the chopsticks get more than one use and are repurposed creatively for products that look stylish and also come with a story,' Jabbour explained.
Three weeks to go
Jabbour wants The Arbor School's Burj project to draw attention to the 'breathtaking volume' of chopsticks used by the F&B industry, not only in the UAE but worldwide.
The Burj replica construction began in early May and should be completed within three weeks, when Jabbour will seek a new temporary home for the structure. These chopsticks will also later be repurposed as new products.'By getting the school involved, we can demonstrate to the next generation how an item with a very short lifespan is treated as waste by many, but can still have an enduring new purpose,' Jabbour says.
'The project also shows the power of up-cycling and how this imaginative and growing sector can develop not only attractive new products using items destined for landfill but also create jobs for those who wish to pursue a sustainable career direction.'
Jabbour said: 'There is a little bit of irony that these chopsticks will actually be around for longer now than they would have been for the purpose for which they were first designed. That is reassuring to know - and even better for the forests, our ecosystem, and the planet.'

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