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Lantern festival celebrations come at a price

Cities throughout the country have gone all out organizing celebrations for this year's Lantern Festival, but they may not feel so festive when the final bill arrives and the clean-up begins.

Each year the Tourism Bureau subsidizes one city to host the Taiwan Lantern Festival, but large cities like Taipei and Taichung often choose to construct lantern displays of their own. The construction costs for the main lantern alone usually run to at least NT$1 million (US$30,450). The gigantic pig built in Taipei as its theme lantern this year cost close to NT$10 million to build.

And this doesn't include the other smaller, traditional lanterns displayed around it.

Once these have been factored in and Taipei and Kaohsiung stand to spend NT$16 million each and Taichung almost NT$20 million. Chiayi, which is holding this year's Taiwan Lantern Festival, is spending nearly NT$100 million.

Then there are the electricity costs. From last Sunday through next Sunday, Taipei is expected to spend NT$2.51 million on electricity, generators and fuel, while Kaohsiung expects the bill to reach NT$650,000 over six days.

Then comes the question of what do you do with so many lanterns once the festival is over?

Taipei spent approximately NT$18 million building its theme lanterns for the previous two years, both of which have since been dismantled for scrap materials. The theme piece for last year's Taiwan Lantern Festival in Tainan has met a similar fate.

Tainan Mayor Hsu Tain-tsair (許添財) has praised the city's last two lantern festivals for creating business opportunities and tourism revenue, but has admitted that the city doesn't have the funds to maintain the lanterns on their own.

Environmental issues are a concern as well. Chen Chih-chi (陳墀吉), director of Shih Hsin University's department of tourism, said that although the tens of thousands of hand-held lanterns that the government gives out to visitors every year are made of paper instead of plastic, each still contains two batteries that must be discarded.

Ho Chiao-hsun (何宗勳), director general of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Union, pointed out that the carbon dioxide produced by using so much electricity contributes to global climate change.

Thirty-three people have been injured by fireworks so far this year, and the nation's air quality has also suffered.

Sky lanterns and fireworks pose similar environmental and safety problems.

In Pingsi Township (平溪), Taipei County, sky lanterns caused safety hazards by catching fire and falling back to earth. Others flew into traffic on the highways. The remaining tens of thousands of lanterns will turn into a garbage nuisance when they have to be picked out of trees or cleaned up off the ground.

Chiang Shih-min (江世民), director of Tainan County's Bureau of Environmental Protection, said that last year the bureau recorded air particle concentrations at 2.6 times above standard levels during the lantern festival last year, and fears the problem could worsen as the scope of celebrations expands this year and more fireworks are set off.

Worsening air quality can be particularly dangerous for children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems, he said.
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