TAIWAN (REUTERS) - Hundreds of colorful lanterns were set off to the sky over New Taipei City, Taiwan, on Wednesday (Oct 4).

The mid-autumn festival edition of the Pingxi Sky Lantern festival has been introduced for the first time this year, after the activity that is normally held to mark the end of the Lunar New Year turned into one of the country's most popular festivals after already being held for nineteen consecutive years.

Attendees hand-wrote wishes onto the colorful sky lanterns before posing for pictures and finally sending them into the sky.

Environment protection groups have criticized sky lantern events in the past for generating too much plastic waste in the mountains close to the event site, although according to the organisers measures have been taken to clean up and recycle the trash.