To promote eco-friendly worship practices, the Ministry of Environment held a press conference a few days ago at Moucha Zhongshun Temple in Taipei City. Joining hands with the Department of Religion and Ceremonies under the Ministry of the Interior, the Department of Environmental Protection of Taipei City Government, local temples, and a academic team from National Taiwan University (NTU), they jointly promoted the "New Three-Burn Method" policy, centered on "alternative burning, moderate burning, and centralized burning." The policy encourages the public to protect air quality and public health while expressing their sincere religious devotion.
Taipei Moucha Zhongshun Temple installs a real-time air quality monitoring system, balancing religious traditions with devotees' health. (Photo / Provided by Ministry of Environment)
As a model temple, Moucha Zhongshun Temple has actively implemented innovative worship measures in recent years. For "alternative burning," it promotes replacing joss paper with rice; for "moderate burning," it reduces incense burning to one stick per burner; for "centralized burning," it voluntarily decommissions its gold burner and relies on municipal sanitation teams for centralized transport and disposal. Furthermore, the temple collaborated with the NTU team to install real-time air quality monitoring dashboards and air purification systems. This initiative won the top award in the Eco-Friendly category at the 2026 Global Views USR Awards, serving as an outstanding benchmark for local policy implementation.
According to Ministry of Environment statistics, through measures such as replacing paper with charitable donations or rice, and switching to higher-denomination joss paper, Taiwan achieved a total joss paper reduction of approximately 3,929 metric tons in 2025 (Year 114)—2.67 times the amount reduced in 2024. Centralized burning collection reached 39,600 metric tons, a 22% year-on-year increase, showing growing public acceptance of eco-friendly worship. The Ministry calls on the public and temples to continue participating by reallocating joss paper budgets to social charities or utilizing centralized collection services to safeguard public respiratory health.
