Lantern Festival lights up the sky... with pollution

Every year during the Lantern Festival, thousands of people in Taiwan light such lanterns and send them skyward with prayers - a folk ritual dating back centuries that has counterparts on the mainland, as well as in Japan, Vietnam and Thailand.

In Taiwan, the festival reaches a climax here Thursday, the 15th day of the first month in the lunar calendar. Some 40,000 to 50,000 people are expected to crowd this former coal-mining community in northeastern Taiwan - the island's "sky lantern" capital - to take part in a mass celebration that will sow the night sky with thousands of incandescent lamps.

If Taiwan's environmentalists had their way, though, at least some of those people would stay home. As an incentive, Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration this year introduced its "virtual sky lantern" Web site (waste26.epa.gov.tw/skylight), where people can release a digital lantern rather than a real one.

The goal is to blunt what the EPA says is the environmental harm of the festival.

Every year the debris from thousands of burned-out lanterns litters the Taiwan countryside. Some even ignite fires: In 2006, according to press reports, a sky lantern set a field on fire next to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, sending up huge clouds of smoke and forcing officials to temporarily shut a runway.

The virtual lantern campaign is just the latest front in the battle between the island's environmentalists and other activists, on one side, and adherents of traditional folk, Taoist and Buddhist practices on the other.

"Some people say sky lanterns make too much garbage and damage our environment," said Andy Hsiu, of the Taipei County travel and tourism bureau, which promotes the annual festival. "But others think it's not a big problem. They'd rather protect our tradition."

Environmental and other forms of activism gained steam in Taiwan after martial law was lifted in 1987 and the island democratized. Now, Taiwan is trying to strike a balance between activists' demands and respect for cultural traditions that date back centuries. In the process, it is exploring creative compromises like the online sky lantern site, rather than banning traditional practices outright.

"A lot of people here depend on the sky lantern business to make a living," Lu [Cheng-chung, an official at the Pingsi local district office] said.

He and Taipei County officials defended the practice, insisting it was environmentally friendly. Some lantern-selling shops buy back downed lanterns, giving locals a financial incentive to retrieve them. And Lu said more than 100 firefighters would be standing by at the mass lantern-lighting Thursday to put out any accidental blazes.