Specialised teams will collect the nuts, which will be distributed to senior citizen communities and social welfare organisations. - PHOTO: UNSPLASH via The Straits Times/ANN
SEOUL (The Korea Herald/ANN): The refreshing autumn breeze offers a welcome respite from the sweltering summer, but it also heralds the season of smelly ginkgo fruits.
To tackle the annual nuisance of rotting ginkgo nuts stinking up the streets, the Seoul Metropolitan Government launched on Sept 23 a city-wide initiative in which specialised personnel will remove the nuts from trees before they have a chance to fall and rot.
The operation, spanning all 25 districts of the city, targets female ginkgo trees, which account for about a quarter of the city’s 102,794 ginkgo trees.
Specialised teams will use equipment to shake the trees and collect the nuts, focusing on heavily trafficked areas, according to city officials.
The teams will also be dispatched in response to citizen complaints about ginkgo trees.
The removal operation is under way in some districts already, starting with Secho-gu earlier in September, although the full-scale operation starts this week.
The city plans to complete the process by the end of October.
Once the collected seeds, which are edible, pass a safety inspection by the Seoul Research Institute of Public Health and Environment, they will be distributed to senior citizen communities and social welfare organisations. - THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
