Environmentally conscious Taipei authorities are taking a novel approach to this year's annual Ghost Month, when people burn thick stacks of paper money to appease the spirits of the dead: they're providing small garbage bags to limit the amount of immolated cash.
OFFERINGS
To insure that wandering ghosts will not disturb the peace and prosperity of the living over the ensuing 12 months, many Chinese burn copious amounts of paper money and set up tables laden with food during the seventh month of the lunar year -- Ghost Month.
In recent years Taipei authorities have become increasingly concerned that large stacks of immolated cash are adding to the city's already serious air pollution problems.
SPECIAL BAGS
As a remedy, the Taipei City Government said yesterday that it will distribute a bag for each household in which symbolic amounts of paper money can be placed.
``You can address the bag to wandering spirits in general or to specific dead persons of your choice,'' the government said in a statement, adding that municipal garbage trucks would dispose of the bags in the city's high powered incinerators.
This year's Ghost Month observance began last Friday and will continue until Sept. 3. It is marked in ethnic Chinese societies around the world.
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