Environmental agency urges less plastic in cemeteries for All Souls’ Day

Environmentalists are urging people to choose natural decorations and avoid disposable plastic when visiting graves for All Souls’ Day, which honours the dead. The Environmental Protection Agency also advises sorting waste properly, LRT reports.

Instead of plastic flowers, baskets and wreaths, the agency recommends living plants, flowers that can be planted or dried, and other arrangements made from natural materials. Artificial decorations often combine plastic, metal, textiles and glue, making them difficult to separate and recycle.

Reusable decorations can be kept for the following year, helping to reduce waste. Fresh flowers can also be disposed of as green waste, provided they are separated from plastic, wire, floral foam and other non-organic materials.

Choose reusable candle holders and natural wax

The agency recommends candles with reusable holders, where only the candle insert needs replacing, or candles that do not require additional glass, plastic or metal packaging. Disposable holders often end up as mixed waste because packaging contaminated with wax or paraffin is not suitable for ordinary recycling.

Where possible, people should choose candles made from natural wax. Paraffin is made from petroleum products, and burning it can produce soot and release air pollutants, environmentalists say.

After All Souls’ Day, plastic flower pots with the soil removed should go in plastic packaging bins. Only clean glass candle holders, without wax, paraffin, inserts or plastic parts, belong in glass recycling bins. Glass holders with wax or paraffin residue, as well as candle inserts, artificial flowers, floral foam, decorative ribbons and other items made from mixed materials, should go in bins for mixed municipal waste.

Green waste bins are for fresh flowers, wilted bouquets, conifer branches, wooden frames, leaves, needles, moss and other plant-based waste. Plastic, metal and other non-organic parts must be removed first.

Not every glass item belongs in a glass recycling bin, the agency says, and incorrectly sorted waste can contaminate materials intended for recycling. If suitable bins are not available at a cemetery, people should take their waste elsewhere to dispose of it properly. Waste should not be left beside overflowing bins; it should be taken to another appropriate collection point.