Hong Kong people squander 469 tons of paper each Spring Festival by giving red envelopes, an investigation has found.

Hong Kong residents, dominated by Cantonese, traditionally give red envelopes containing money to younger relatives and friends as New Year greetings.

However, the tradition is environmentally costly, a group of environmentalists say.

The environmentalists urged people to use recyclable red envelopes after their investigation found that red envelopes cost some 9,000 trees each year, or a forest as large as 22 Hong Kong Stadiums.

Investigators polled 500 Hong Kong families earlier this month, and found that each family would use about 94 red envelopes for the Spring Festival.

At this rate, 469 tons of red envelopes would be used in Hong Kong during the Spring Festival.

Less than 30 percent of those polled said they would recycle the envelopes, while nearly half said they would throw them into dustbins after taking out the money.

Of the total polled, 40 percent said they would like to use recycled red envelopes, but they were unavailable on the market.

More than half said they did not have to buy red envelopes because banks and shopping malls provided them as New Year gifts.

The group's spokesperson said they had sent e-mails to big banks urging them to use recyclable red envelopes, but received no reply.

To encourage citizens to use environmentally friendly red envelopes, the group made 2,000 with recycled paper, and distributed them in markets. They have no glue seals and can be used many times.

Red envelopes made of recycled paper were 50 percent more expensive than ordinary red envelopes, said the spokesperson. However, if made in large quantities, the cost could be lowered greatly.

(Shenzhan Daily January 26, 2005)