Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Local governments conduct fight against smell of ginkgo nuts
Civil servants of Busanjin-gu, Busan, collect ginkgo nuts from the streets, Tuesday. Collected nuts are donated to senior citizens' centers and welfare facilities after going through a safety test. Yonhap
By Lee Hae-rin
By Lee Hae-rin
Local governments here are collecting nuts from roadside ginkgo trees before they fall naturally, following continuous complaints every autumn about the pungent stench released when they are crushed on the streets.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government, along with 25 district offices in the capital, organized a “ginkgo collection taskforce” and initiated an early harvest from the ginkgo trees, starting Sept. 15, at a cost of 242 million won ($202,697). About 25 percent of the 106,000 ginkgo trees along streets in the capital are the nut-producing female of the species.
“The primary target of the ginkgo collection are areas with a large number of passersby, including bus stops, metro exits and shopping complexes. For efficient collection, special equipment is used including tower wagons, excavators and mesh,” an official from the Landscape Management Division of Seoul City told The Korea Times, Friday.
Major cities in other parts of the country, including Suwon and Goyang in Gyeonggi Province, Chuncheon and Gangneung in Gangwon Province, and Busan are also taking similar measures to deal with the ginkgo smell. The government of Chuncheon adopted mechanical tree shakers, which shorten the nut harvest time from 20 minutes ― for workers doing this manually ― to only two minutes.
The collected nuts go through a safety test at the Public Health and Environment Research Institute, and are donated to senior citizen or welfare facilities. Ginkgo nuts are known to contain antioxidants, and help in blood circulation, and combating fatigue and hangovers.
According to the Korea Forest Service, ginkgo trees are the most common roadside trees here and account for 12 percent of the total 8.25 million planted on streets. Despite growing complaints over the smell of the nuts, the trees provide several benefits in urban settings.
“Ginkgo trees require little water, don't easily catch fire, resist harsh winter weather and offer beautiful autumn colors. Most of all, they can absorb city pollution including sulfurous acid gases and fine dust, making them suitable for planting along city streets,” an official from the Urban Forest and Landscape Division of the Korea Forest Service told The Korea Times.
Some suggest planting only male trees, but it used to be difficult to distinguish whether a tree was male or female until the first harvest, which happens after about 20 years of growth. As a result, both male and female trees were planted in urban areas. However, these days the gender of trees can be determined before being planted via DNA testing.