Every year, billions of disposable chopsticks are used once and discarded. Despite being made from renewable bamboo, most end up in landfills, representing both a wasted resource and a missed opportunity for circular manufacturing.
ChopValue is a circular economy company that transforms used chopsticks into high-quality consumer and commercial products. Through a distributed manufacturing model, the company collects used chopsticks from restaurant partners and processes them in local microfactories, turning waste into durable goods such as furniture, home products, and architectural materials.
Focus Area: Circular economy & sustainable manufacturing (SDG 12.5)
Deal size: $50,000
Year: 2017
At the time of investment, ChopValue had recycled 5 million chopsticks and operated solely in Vancouver. Our investment supported the company during its early growth stage as it refined its distributed microfactory model.
The Vancouver Propel Impact Fellowship team invested $50,000 in December 2017, following extensive due diligence. ChopValue has since expanded into a global circular manufacturing platform, recycling over 213,000,000 chopsticks, establishing 84 microfactory locations, and storing 11.4 million kg of carbon in recycled bamboo products. The company has raised over $29M in subsequent financing as of 2026.
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