Legislative elections and referendums: EPA reminds the public to recycle old campaign flags

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday urged all voters and candidates to instill a "second life" into campaign flags and banners, and practice "reuse, reduce and recycle."

"After the election the public are encouraged to ask candidates for these election materials and re-use them with creativity," EPA Resource Recycling Foundation secretary-general Lin Chien-hui (林建輝) said.

The idea to reuse election flags and banners came four years ago, when legislative election candidates deployed them on roads and buildings all over the country, Lin said.

"The flags are only used for a mere one or two weeks before being discarded, which is a great waste of resources," he said.

After the last election the EPA collected more than 50,000 flags.

Though the flags are the property of the candidates and they should clean them up, most commissioned local environmental protection bureaus to clear the flags for them, he said.

"After we collected the flags, we decided to make them into things like aprons and shopping bags and made them free for people who requested them," he said.

Other ideas included making storage bags for winter blankets and scarecrows for rice paddies, he said, adding that of course, the number of uses for the flags was only limited by your creativity.

"I encourage all those interested in challenging themselves to make good use of these perfectly good materials," he said.