Gift-wrapping ritual典禮a New Year no-no (SCMP) 02/ 09/2007

Supermarkets will encourage people to reduce packaging of
Lunar New Year gifts by using reusable shopping bags instead of their
traditional gift-wrapping services.

Wellcome will now charge 50 cents for each piece of
wrapping paper used at its service.

ParknShop will still offer a free wrapping service but
will also sell its environmentally friendly bags for HK$3.80, a 46 per
cent discount.

Responding to an Environmental Protection Department
appeal, Wellcome will encourage customers to buy a reusable bag with a New
Year motif花朵圖案for
HK$8.90 instead of using its gift-wrapping service.

"We received a request from the Environmental Protection
Department asking us to avoid using wrapping paper. You can't suddenly
stop the service. That's why we are charging," a Wellcome spokeswoman said
yesterday.

The department said 2,000 tonnes of packaging went to
landfills every day in 2005, 21 per cent of municipal市政的solid
waste, and it cost HK$150 million a year to process.

The 50 cents that Wellcome receives for each piece of
wrapping paper will be donated to the department's Environmental Campaign
Committee for public education, the spokeswoman said. "But it's on a
voluntary basis. We can't force them to pay," she added.

Supermarkets were asked not to offer a free wrapping
service for the Lunar New Year after a green group's survey found
overpackaging has become a serious problem.

"We should break the tradition of providing a
gift-wrapping service for free. About 60 per cent of respondents said they don't
mind receiving unwrapped gifts," Friends of the Earth director Edwin Lau
Che-feng said.

The green group last month interviewed more than
1,000 people on their attitude to gift wrapping.

Survey results showed more than half said they asked for
gift-wrapping service during Lunar New Year. But at the same time, almost 60 per
cent said they did not mind receiving unwrapped gifts.

"The practice reflects a traditional Chinese way of
showing respect, but we should stop and think about the environment now," said
Michelle Au Wing-tsz, the organisation's environmental affairs officer, who
looked into extravagant packaging of various Lunar New Year gifts.

A fruit basket that costs more than HK$300 is
actually worth only HK$200, she said, citing one example. Customers pay for the
packaging, such as the basket, decorating paper and ribbons絲帶that
generally make up one-third of the price.

Another example, a carp鯉魚-shaped
rice cake wrapped in a huge paper container with firecracker
and gold ingot鑄塊decorations,
weighed 3.6kg but the rice cake weighed only 1.6kg.

"The paper container is mixed with plastic material to
enhance its durability. It's not recyclable and it's too large to fit
in any refrigerator available on the market," Ms Au said.