Shanghai Daily News

The student unions at universities across the city are encouraging students to give away fruit instead of paper cards as Christmas gifts to classmates this year, in an attempt to cut down on waste.

The 13 student unions involved in the citywide campaign, which was set up by Fudan University's environmental protection community, offer fresh oranges and apples for students to give as gifts.

Students who wish to send a season's greeting to their friends, lovers and teachers can order the fruit at their campus environmental community by writing down their greeting words on a silk ribbon, as well as the name and address of the receiver.

Student community workers then will buy the fruit at nearby market and deliver the gift, wrapped in the silk ribbon, to the appointed person before December 25.

Students can buy an apple or orange for 3 yuan (37 US cents), or they can exchange 10 used batteries or a 10-centimeter-tall pile of old newspapers for the fruit.

"We want to advocate fellow schoolmates to celebrate Christmas by sending something useful to each other, rather than giving those not environmentally friendly paper Christmas cards," said Chen Tianyi, 20, chairman of Fudan's environmental protection community.

Besides, orange, or "cheng" in Chinese, also shares the same pronunciation with "sincerity" in the country's language, students said.

Fudan had already received 150 orders as of yesterday, most of which were sent between students on the same campus. The school expects to take in another 100 orders before Christmas Day, Chen said.

Jiang Yuting, a third-year student at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said that gift oranges can not only effectively reduce consumption of paper, but are also warmly welcomed by university students.

"Receivers always get a big surprise when seeing a well-packed orange sent to their doorsteps. It's a more amazing gift than those monotonous paper cards," Jiang said.