Sharing Fresh Flowers at Yeongnak Park... Gwangju's "Reducing Plastic Artificial Flowers" Campaign

Ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, Gwangju City is promoting an eco-friendly grave visit campaign to reduce the use of plastic artificial flowers. During the Lunar New Year holiday period, when visitors to gravesites are concentrated, the city will distribute fresh flowers free of charge at Yeongnak Park to help spread an eco-friendly memorial culture.

Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 14th that, together with Gwangju Urban Corporation, it will carry out an "Eco-friendly memorial park campaign without plastic artificial flowers" at the municipal cemetery.

Eco-friendly memorial park campaign without plastic flowers. Provided by Gwangju City

This campaign has been prepared to reduce the use of plastic artificial flowers and to promote a sustainable culture of visiting graves. Starting at 10 a.m. on this day, when the Lunar New Year holiday begins, Gwangju City plans to distribute 2,000 fresh chrysanthemum flowers free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis to visitors at Yeongnak Park.

At the same time, the city will restrict the bringing in of plastic artificial flowers into the municipal cemetery and will encourage the use of artificial flowers made from eco-friendly materials such as fresh flowers or paper. Plastic artificial flowers are made of mixed materials that are difficult to recycle, and when exposed to sunlight for a long time, they break down into microplastics, which has long been pointed out as a cause of environmental pollution.

Gwangju City explained that during last year's Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays, it distributed 8,500 fresh flowers and implemented restrictions on bringing in plastic artificial flowers, which helped reduce the amount of waste generated.

Jeong Mikyung, head of the Resource Circulation Division, said, "Small choices within our grave-visiting culture can lead to real actions that protect the environment," and added, "We ask citizens once again this Lunar New Year to choose fresh flowers instead of plastic artificial flowers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.