Here in Korea, fast food joints give you little cardboard spoons. They are flat and die-cut, and you fold the handle lengthwise to make a functioning spoon. (I haven’t been to America recently enough to know if that’s commonplace there as well.)
I wonder if America would ever warm up to cheap pinewood chopsticks for non-Asian foods?
I’ve not seen cardboard spoons; I suspect that something like that exists here, but if so, it’s likely still a small niche.
This study suggests that only about 1/3 of Americans feel that their skill at using chopsticks is “fair” or better (I’m actually a little surprised that it’s that high), and I think that’d be a factor in not adopting chopsticks more broadly. However, I think an even bigger factor would be that I suspect that most Americans would feel that chopsticks (even if you were proficient in them) would be inferior tools to a knife and fork for a lot of common American dishes, including salads.
Here in Eugene, Oregon (the other Emerald City), we have an arts/crafts/music/food market every Saturday (which, oddly enough, is called the “Saturday Market”). There’s about 20 food vendors there every week. All of them loan out metal forks or spoons for FREE, on the honor system. You drop off the utensil into a bucket when you’re done with it (so they wash it and use it again) or bring it back the next Saturday. Metal forks and spoons cost less than $1 each in bulk. If you use them a dozen or so times before they eventually get lost/stolen/misplaced, the replacement cost is about a nickel per sale (plus the cost of running them through the dishwasher).
Some of the vendors also have chopsticks available.
Many disabled individuals have difficulty with non-plastic straws; they cannot easily be turned into the ‘bendy’ straws which facilitate easy fluid consumption for many quadriplegics and stroke victims. An out and out ban on plastic straws and similar adaptive devices would make life more challenging for such folks.
NPR did a nice piece on this topic: Why people with disabilities want bans on plastic straws to be more flexible
Never heard of the folding cardboard spoon, and would choke the last dolphin to death with the last sea turtle before I’d switch to them.
IIRC, cheap wood chopsticks have a bit of an environmental impact themselves. When I worked in an office I would keep a decent set of camping utensils in my desk so I could avoid the disposable stuff.
On Shark Tank there was a presenter with disposable bamboo chopsticks with a removable rest (you’re always supposed to place them on the side of the plate or bowl, or on a rest on the table). The primary selling point was the rest, secondary was that bamboo grows extremely fast and is easily renewable, third was that she planned an upcycle process where the chopsticks would be renewed as flooring or shelving, among other items. The presenter didn’t get the deal because her chopsticks were more expensive (fractions to a few cents more) and she was told no one would pay the extra for something they give away.
Missing from the discussion is the use of waste incinerators. Countries that use waste incinerators are also the highest recyclers. Modern incinerators take care of dioxins and environmental emissions very well. It’s also easier to take care of the small amount of hazardous ash than to have the plastic forks floating around.
But waste management in the US is virtually a monopoly and they will resist the use of incinerators because it has a higher capital investment.
Investment in a well run incinerator versus investment in all sorts of alternative cutlery is a better trade off in the long run (IMO).
I’m not sure why anyone would use disposable pinewood chopsticks instead of disposable bamboo ones. Bamboo is about as renewable as it comes: Each segment of bamboo is literally one day’s growth. Even with all of the advantages of mass production, I doubt there’s any other material chopsticks could be made from more cheaply.
Thanks for the responses so far.
Doing addition research on suggestions in this thread, it does look likePolylactic acid(PLA) would far and away be the leading replacement for disposable cutlery, straws, bags etc., at least for North America, at least in the take-out/fast food scenario I posted (which likely occurs millions times a day in N.A.). Sorry, but I don’t see chopsticks or paper spoons working out en-masse in N.A., and certainly your corner bodega is not going to lend out metal utensils.
PLA can be injection molded, which as we know from “How Its Made” and the like is currently the best method to make simple disposable items in industrial quantities at reasonable costs (maybe in decades a form of 3-D printing or some other method will be cheapest, but for now…).
I saw some comment that regular PLA does not handle hot temperatures very well (not good for hot cups or take-out hot soup for example), but there are other forms of PLA which can handle such temperatures.
So fine, PLA it is (I always hated those silly wooden spoons you use to get with Italian ices anyway).
Epilogue: There was much mention of PLA and 3-D printing. As a person into building models, 3-D printing is of some interest to me. Therefore PLA which can degrade would NOT be the ideal material to use to print items I want to last for decades. There is other materials that can be used, but PLA doesn’t seem suited for model part creation beyond a throwaway prototype.
PLA can degrade, if you go to a lot of effort to make it degrade. Under ordinary conditions, it’ll last as long as any other plastic. But if you’re really worried about it, ABS (what Lego are made of) is nearly as cheap and easy to 3D print (most home printers will switch between the two at the touch of a button)
And 3D printing will never compete with injection molding for mass production. What it might do is make injection molding even cheaper, by making it easier to make the molds.
3D printing will never be as durable because even with ABS you don’t get the same cross linking that you get in other processes.
In Seattle any trash that cannot be composted is loaded on semi trucks or railroad cars and is shipped 100’s of miles to Central Oregon for disposal.
This is expensive and so it is quite cost effective for the city to use commercial composting which will absolutely break down PLA.
In the ocean, while PLA does take a long time to degrade it does finally degrade to lactic acid where plastics will essentially ALWAYS be plastic, just smaller.
I prefer chopsticks when eating anything other than liquids. I use cheap bamboo sticks and give them a quick rinse after use. This has been my habit at home and work for the past 30 years or so.
And they would be wrong. Nothing freaks my students out more at lunch than seeing me eat a salad with chopsticks. 
You can’t make a distinction between PLA and “plastics”, because PLA is a plastic.
Sure if you want to ignore the end degenerative state.
Yes PLA products are just another form of plastic that will take years to breakdown in landfills and the ocean; but they do break down. Most disposable dinnerware that people call “plastic” is polypropylene, which will take centuries to break down while slowly becoming smaller and smaller pieces in the North Pacific gyre.
I get that you are talking about the technical term for “plastics” but as most non-technical users will refer to bulk plastics, including polyethylene and polypropylene as “plastic” it works out fine in this domain.
Replacing a waste stream with a material that breaks down in ~24 months in the ocean vs. several hundred to a thousand years is the intent and arguing about syntax really doesn’t change that.
When I was a kid, our family frequented an Italian restaurant that made their own pasta. They gave us pasta straws in our drinks. If they ended in the ocean, they’d serve as fish food. Win/Win.
This may be an Asian thing, but is anyone bothered by using the the ‘wrong’ chopsticks for different Asian foods. I just picked up some Chinese food and since the chopsticks I have at home are Japanese style, I’ll use the disposables they gave me. In fact, I keep a pack of disposables for eating Korean and Chinese takeout and only use my home chopsticks for Japanese food.
For those who aren’t familiar with the differences, Japanese, Chinese and Korean chopsticks are different. Japanese chopsticks usually have round square top that turns into a cylinder and tapers down to a ~1/8" tip. Chinese chopsticks may have a slightly squared top and a very slight taper that ends with a ~3/16 tip or may not have squared top and be a straight rod with a very slight taper from from top to tip. Korean chopsticks are very similar to Chinese ones, except are usually metal.
For me, the mouth and hand feel of the chopsticks must match the food I’m eating. Eating Japanese ramen with Chinese style chopsticks just feels wrong, but perfectly fine and appropriate when eating Chinese won ton min. And eating anything but Korean food with metal chopsticks really bothers me, so much that I’ll often ask for disposable chopsticks. I don’t know if it’s my imagination or not, but I swear sometimes the metal chopsticks reacts with non-Korean food and imparts an odd flavor.
Oddly, the differences between square wooden and round bamboo disposables don’t bother me, though getting disposables (either type) for a sit down meal at restaurant does. Disposables are for drive-ins and takeout.
Finally, OMG eating Japanese ramen with a fork! In Hawaii getting a pair of chopsticks are de rigueur and anyone asking for a fork should be charged a $10 fine! 
If I’m eating fideos in Hawaii they’re not Japanese!
I had to look up fideos and see it’s noodles. If you’re talking the saimin* served in most places, then I agree. But there are authentic ramen shops if you search.
*Saimin is the local Hawaiian name for Japanese style ramen. According to Wikipedia (I know… but this time it’s highly likely correct): “Saimin is a noodle soup dish developed by different immigrant groups in Hawaii. Inspired by Japanese ramen, Chinese mein, and Filipino pancit, saimin was developed during Hawaii’s plantation era.” It’s not so far off that a Japanese national wouldn’t recognize it as ramen, which has hundreds of variations of soup, noodles and toppings in Japan.