Atoner for the broken hearts

Entrepreneur helps alleviate the grief of lost love by disposing of sentimental mementos, Wang Qian reports.

When love ends, what happens to the mementos? It's a question faced by most couples who part ways. Fortunately, a waste disposal center in North China's Hebei province seems to provide a solution. The facility in Langfang shreds hundreds of wedding photos and sends them to a power plant incinerator, where they are turned to dust, much like those once happy marriages.

The business has proved a hit with more than 200 clients, who have sent various keepsakes, mainly wedding photos, from across the country. Liu Wei, a 41-year-old resident of Beijing, launched the service early last year, which has helped people destroy their unwanted personal items, such as smartphones, laptops and documents.

"As a marketing gimmick, wedding photos are just part of our business. It was beyond my expectations how much it caught the public and media's attention. Maybe it is the emotions and stories behind the need for the service that resonates with shifting attitudes toward marriage," Liu says.

These changes in attitude are reflected in the latest data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which shows that in the first three quarters of last year, more than 1.97 million couples registered for divorce, up 1.4 percent year-on-year.

"Divorce, which used to be a social taboo, is no longer a topic that people feel cannot be discussed publicly. It is a common phenomenon, which can be seen among those born in the late 1970s and early '80s. I have seen so many people divorce, and some, although still married, go on dates with other people," Liu says.

Talking about why the memento disposal service became such a hit, he says that maybe it provides a discussion platform for different opinions to be heard.

Under his posts on short video platform Douyin, a comment from one user with the handle "Caicai "says: "It is a surprise to find that the strongest part of a marriage is the wedding photos." Although that sounds ironic, for many couples in China, tearing up wedding photos after a failed marriage is — quite literally — not an easy task.