HONG KONG is urging people to eschew the tradition of stuffing crisp new bank notes into red envelopes given away as gifts during the Lunar New Year holidays that begin this month.

People should put used cash in the gift packets to avoid wasting resources and harming the environment, Monetary Authority Chief Executive Joseph Yam said in a statement issued last week.

The Lunar New Year - which is also known as the Spring Festival and starts Jan. 29 this year - is the biggest annual holiday in China. People usually flock to banks to get newly minted currency to put into their gift envelopes.

Yam said there's usually a demand for about HK$300 million (US$38.7 million) in new bank notes during the holidays. It takes 400 tons of cotton to make the paper needed to print the currency, he added.

This year, Yam said banks would encourage customers to accept "good-as-new notes" that have been circulating but are still in fine condition.

"Thanks to the use of sophisticated note-sorting machines, the banks are able to sort out dirty and torn bank notes that they receive back from circulation every day," Yam said. "Only bank notes that are reasonably clean and in good condition are released back into circulation."

Editor: Wing