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Last February, China’s
leading food-delivery
platform, Alibaba-
owned Eleme, began
offering customers
a delicious new way
to help the planet:
edible chopsticks.
China produces more
than 57 billion pairs
of disposable, some-
times chemically
treated, wood chop-
sticks for use around
the world each year,
the equivalent of fell-
ing roughly 3.8 million
trees annually. Much
of this wood comes
from a region that has
struled with wide-
spread deforestation.
Instead of wood,
Eleme’s chopsticks are
made of wheat flour
blended with icing
sugar, milk powder,
butter, and water, and
come in three flavors:
wheat, matcha, and
purple sweet potato.
Each pair is sheathed
in colorful recycled
paper and made lo-
cally. The effort grew
out of an in-house
push toward more
sustainable practices.
The company’s R&D
team worked along-
side creative agency
FF Shanghai to figure
out how to get cus-
tomers to embrace
similar values. “In
China, people love
new things,” says Feng
Huang, the president
and executive cre-
ative director at FF
Shanghai. “At the
same time, more and
more care about
the environment.”
The edible chopsticks
satisfy both. The
effort kicked off with
43 partner restaurant
chains, and Eleme
gave out 250,000
utensils in the first
week alone. Within
Cooking Up
Tasty Utensils
Edible Chopsticks
ELEME AND FF SHANGHAI
the first six months,
the company sur-
passed 100 chains
and has produced
more than 10 million
pairs, many of which
are now carried in-
house at restaurants.
It’s one small shift
for eaters, but the
global impact is
growing daily. —BP
Lots of people can spy on you online—even your own internet service provider (ISP).
In 2017, Congress abolished rules preventing ISPs from collecting customer traffic data
for marketing. One easy way for them to do that is to record every numerical IP address
your web browser looks up.
In April 2018, content-delivery network Cloudflare teamed with the Mozilla Foundation
to create a free system that protects consumers from snooping third parties. The Firefox
browser bypasses your ISP and sends lookup requests to Cloudflare’s own DNS server, at the
internet address 1.1.1.1. This traffic is also encrypted to prevent any online snoop (whether
ISP, hacker, or government) from deciphering a list of sites you visit. In November, Cloudflare
released the free, one-click 1.1.1.1 app, which encrypts connections between all Android or
iOS apps and Cloudflare’s DNS server. It’s been downloaded more than 2.5 million times.
The consumer protection efforts are good for business, says cofounder and CEO Matthew
Prince. People prefer to work for or close deals with a company making a positive impact. But
Cloudflare catches some criticism for its main business: optimizing websites and protecting
them from hackers. The company’s near-absolutist free-speech stance allows a handful of hate
and terror groups to open accounts. Aside from lawful orders, Cloudflare rebuffs calls to drop
clients—many on free accounts—to avoid setting a precedent for censorship. “If companies
start to impose the values of their leadership on what the internet looks like, that’s an incred-
ibly risky thing,” says Prince. —Sean Captain
Blocking Digital Eavesdroppers 1.1.1.1 CLOUDFLARE
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