Burning ghost paper: health effects?

I mean obviously it can’t be good… but any idea how bad it is?

I see them doing it in the Taoist temples and in the street buckets. And we have to breathe it in? This time of year it even gets inside.

I heard it kills the Coronavirus. :smirk:

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I think they do it because whenever it gets cold it means they want to introduce more carbon dioxide into the air to warm the planet back up.

Gives me asthma.

It has positive health (and wealth) effects for your dead ancestors.

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That’s pretty much medically impossible

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Psychosomatic you reckon?

I don’t know the details about asthma, but in general, smoke can make it more difficult to breath. So maybe not asthma, but still an inconvenience to your lungs. It could be partially psychosomatic as well.

Moved to calif 20 years ago but I can still vividly remember the smell of burning paper money

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you can also be more practical and burn some paper washing machines, irons and other useful items. If you send too much money they may just burn it.

the incense give me headaches, that shit have something.

if you live above a temple it’s bad for you, if you smell it once a month or only at cny its probably harmless, you get much more pollution from scooters and cars but you don’t pay attention since it doesn’t smell.

This is the thing.

I live close to one and sometimes if I’m sitting right beside the window I can smell when the smoke plumes come up, but only if I’m right beside the window.

If I’m anywhere else in the apartment then it doesn’t smell - if I happen to be there and smell it when they are burning, I would literally just move 5 feet away and can’t smell it anymore - but I’m worried about some of the smaller particles or other health effects beyond smell.

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I thought temples are supposed to install scrubbers so it doesn’t pollute. I know they have big ghost paper burning thing in funeral homes and they have scrubbers.

What are scrubbers? If I can report them that would be great although probably futile.

They have these big metal smoke stacks that go up from the ghost paper burning kilns but that just means the smoke gets released a few storeys up.

They’re something in the smoke stack to remove the harmful stuff before it is released from the air…

Ha, this is an old one!

Ah, so that only the healthy smoke is left?

Is it possible that since I can smell it in a very small part of my apartment (near the window) that there could be particles in the air of the entire (or a good portion of it) that I just can’t smell?

I’m reviving this thread to link a nicely detailed feature by always excellent (and part-time forumosan) @StevenCrook on the subject. It’s an informative read.

Guy

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