China marks Qingming Festival, eco-friendly tomb sweeping gaining ground

Qingming Festival, or Tomb-Sweeping Day, falls on Wednesday this year. It's a traditional Chinese festival that pays tribute to the deceased and is a time for people to worship their ancestors.

In recent years, eco-friendly tomb sweeping and green burials have gained popularity in China. Funerals are of great importance in China. The scale of funerals and the size of tombs were once used as standards to evaluate the filial piety of the deceased's descendants.

However, lawn burials, tree burials, and sea burials are more common, which involve less land use and fewer non-degradable materials.

In north China's coastal city of Dalian, a sea burial ceremony was held last month for citizens to bid farewell to their deceased loved ones, with 43 sets of cremains being scattered into the sea.

"The degradation caskets that we use meet the requirements of the environmental protection department. Once put into the sea, they will quickly degrade without damaging the surrounding environment. We have conducted sea burials for nearly 30,000 sets of cremains since 2012," said Sun Litao, an official of the Shenyang Bureau of Civil Affairs.

More and more funeral parlors and cemeteries have provided flowers, memorial cards, and other eco-friendly items to mourners instead of selling paper money and firecrackers.