While many local residents have thrown away their festival plants, those living in the Mashan community in Luohu District are doing their bit for the environment by handing them over to volunteers who will look after them until next year’s Spring Festival.

It has long been a tradition in Guangdong to buy plants and flowers, especially small potted* orange trees, to decorate* homes during the Spring Festival.

Some people also purchase expensive flowers like peonies* and orchids* as gifts for friends. However, once the festival is over, the plants become a headache.

Now volunteers in Mashan community, Dongxiao Street, have launched a service to look after people’s festival plants.

“Residents simply need to call us and we will go to their homes to collect the plant,” Zhou Guidi, a volunteer, said.

Residents are then given a card bearing a number, their name and a general description of the plant, making it easy for the owners to reclaim* their property the following year.

The plants are taken to a garden in the community, where interested residents have also been invited to volunteer during their free time.

Many local residents throw their plants away after the plants die in a corner of their balcony, the Chinese report said.

Withered* flowers discarded* near residential blocks create extra work for cleaners. “They have to clear unsold festival flowers thrown away by farmers after Spring Festival eve and then after the Lantern Festival, when people start throwing away their flowers,” said an official with the city’s environmental hygiene* department.

“We sent more than 1,000 workers and a number of trucks to clear discarded plants from flower fairs on Spring Festival eve. The volume of flowers thrown away after the Lantern Festival each year is simply too large to calculate,” he said.