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Virtual floats used to reduce waste at Thailand festival
The Hindu
Bangkok celebrated Loy Krathong with virtual projections of traditional offerings, reducing waste and pollution in the city's waterways. Attendees created digital krathong, with 3,700 images projected onto the Ong Ang Canal. Polystyrene usage was down 3%, with natural materials used for most offerings. #LoyKrathong #Bangkok #PollutionReduction
Luscious greens, egg-yolk yellows and delicate oranges flickered across waterways in the Thai capital of Bangkok, as virtual projections of the Loy Krathong festival’s traditional offerings reduced waste at the popular event.
The annual festival, celebrated this year on Monday, sees millions ask forgiveness from the river goddess Khongkha by releasing colourful floats into waters across Thailand under a full moon.
In recent years, environmentalists have expressed concern as Bangkok’s already clogged waterways are increasingly choked by the plastic and foliage krathongs , as the offerings are known.
To combat this, a Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) initiative took a fresh approach to the centuries-old tradition.
Rather than floating the elaborately constructed offerings — which include leaves, flowers, plastic, candles, incense sticks and sometimes coins — people were asked to create digital krathong .
After colouring-in drawings of krathong on paper, or on their phones, attendees’ sketches were scanned and then projected onto the city’s Ong Ang Canal.
“The tradition still remains. But we must integrate the festival to be up-to-date, in order to create less impact and less pollution on nature,” attendee Chainarong Tumapha said.
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