NANTOU COUNTY: A Taiwanese couple decked out in a tux and gown embrace in front of a mountain of trash in an unorthodox wedding photo — one the environment-conscious bride hopes will discourage her guests from generating unnecesary garbage.

Greenpeace campaigner Iris Hsueh and her fiance are having their “environmentally friendly wedding” in January, and have asked guests to bring their own containers for taking home leftovers.

Deciding that showing — not telling — was a more effective communication method, the Taipei-based couple travelled three hours south for a photo shoot in Nantou county’s Puli township, where the amount of trash brought to a local dump has steadily risen over the years.

“If any guests are not willing to bring along a container, I would show them the photograph and say, ‘Would you reconsider?’” the 33-year-old said, adding that the photos ended up drawing local media attention. “I didn’t think it would create such a big sensation.”

Self-ruled Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, has had a recycling programme since 1987, with over 50 per cent of household trash processed through the system — among the highest rates in the world.

But Puli township’s sanitation crew chief Chen Chun-hung said the amount of garbage there has mushroomed — back in the 1980s, it was about 20 tonnes a day; now, its about 50. “Our population is actually decreasing, but the amount of garbage is increasing every year,” he said.

The Puli dump site was initially a parking lot for garbage trucks, and using it as a waste storage site was supposed to be “temporary”, he said, but it has now been functioning for three years.

Published in Dawn, October 22th, 2023