Innovation leads to brighter future for Taiwan lantern

Economically friendly

In 2016, Shao founded a company called "Cultural Bank" to record, protect and innovate Taiwan's traditional culture. Since then, her team has begun to make lanterns more environmentally friendly.

They once thought of making them with rice paper, so if they dropped in the mountains, the paper would dissolve in rain.

In February, Shao crowdfunded online for their latest lanterns and raised NT$1.6 million ($52,000) in about three months. They replaced the bamboo frame with a paper structure so the flame burns out the whole lantern in the air, "with nothing falling on the ground," said Shao.

She planned to price an eco-friendly lantern at NT$350 to NT$450, two or three times the price of a common lantern. She had confidence that people would pay more for environment.

However, some locals have cast doubt on her eco-friendly materials as too complex and likely to produce more pollution in the making process.

Lin Guohe, 71, one of the few traditional lantern craftsmen in Pingxi, supported Shao, but proposed that lanterns should be friendly not only to the environment, but to the economy.

Since 2013, the local government has offered cash rewards to people who bring lanterns to a recycling station.

Most lantern collectors are elderly. If the eco-friendly lanterns become popular, they would lose that income, said Lin.

Pingxi people once relied on coal mines, but after they were closed, the lantern business gradually became a pillar of the economy.

"Without lanterns, who will come to this remote mountainous area?" asked one resident.

One Facebook post suggested the lantern rubbish indicated Pingxi has been overrun by visitors.

Shao said the lanterns could save the local economy.

"If they are really banned for polluting the environment, the local economy will definitely be hit hard," she said.