Toxic smoke and forest fires … when honouring China’s dead becomes a health hazard over Ching Ming festival

As China celebrates the Ching Ming grave-sweeping festival this week, local media outlets have reported incidents of people’s joss-paper-burning activities gone awry.

In Hangzhou in eastern Zhejiang province, health care workers have seen a rise in the number of patients admitted into hospital after breathing in a large amount of toxic smoke from burning joss paper, Hangzhou Daily reported.

Joss paper is the name for sheets of paper or items crafted from paper, such as clothes, cars and mobile phones, that are burned as offerings to the dead in the belief that the items will ensure the deceased are provided for in the afterlife.

Some colourful joss paper, however, contains lead, tin and other metals, and when burned, emits poisonous smoke, according to the newspaper.

Hangzhou’s Red Cross Hospital had received an increasing number of patients exhibiting symptoms of heavy metal poisoning, said Li Guohui, a doctor at the hospital.

They were found to have inhaled lead particles after burning joss paper before tombs, the report said.