Just 2 Weeks Littered Salt Lake Is Back to Its Natural State!

With summer tourism season in full swing, Qinghai’s Chaka Salt Lake has once again become a very popular destination for its gorgeous “mirror of the sky” effects. Despite all the beautiful photos of this natural site that you may find online, much darker times have plagued the area with piles of trash littered all over which we just reported the other day:

A video showing the current state of the Qinghai Chaka Salt Lake was shot and published on July 31st, showing a very unpleasant scenery of tourists entering the lake area with plastic shoe covers on. More than 12 tons of garbage is cleared out every season. 

Photo credit: travel.souhu.com

Some online photos show that the trestle road on the side of the Chaka Salt Lake is crowded with visitors walking through various shades of colorful plastic waste that has been abandoned by previous tourists. 

The local government has been taking this matter very seriously and arranged a professional team to help solve the problem, as reported during a live broadcast on Qingdao Beibao.

Photo credit: 央广网

A reporter from the North Qingdao newspaper interviewed a staff member surnamed Li in the Salt Lake scenic spot of Chaka. He said that after the summer tourism peak, as the number of tourists skyrockets, some of them do have the uncivilized behavior of littering at will. “We have been paying great attention to the environmental sanitation in the scenic area,” he said. The scenic spots also set up a lot of publicity signs and staff patrols.

It is reported that in order to alleviate the environmental pressure of the lake, the scenic spot specially customizes degradable leasehold shoes. At the same time, nearly 200 cleaning workers are dispatched to patrol the surroundings. Authorities invite tourists to come enjoy the beautiful scenery and also to protect it.

He also mentioned that there are many illegal vendors cheating tourists by selling plastic shoes outside the area: ”Without such kind of plastic shoes you can't get into the lake zone, and the shoes sold “at the door” are more expensive." 

''We've arranged police forces from the bureau of public security and marketing department to approach these illegal vendors. At first, it takes efforts to intensify the renovation as the illegal vendors pretended to be tourists and sold their products. But as those vendors were starting to get kicked out by the police, they still found ways of selling their products in more hidden places which makes it harder to track them down. Eventually, however, more than 70 illegal vendors have been cleared out of the area including 2 arrests. We also seized more than 40 thousand unqualified shoe covers which will be destroyed.”

According to Li, in order to maintain the health of this scenic area, a professional cleaning company has been employed before the summer peak season. At present, the cleaning service personnel counts about 180 people, many of whom work long shifts from 6 AM to 10:30 PM to keep the area as clean as possible. 

Photo credit: 央广网

"We will also build up an ecological park once the Wetland park is completed with about 30-40 rare species of birds flying here. The garbage we collect is delivered to the Waste Treatment Station asap." Li said. "In order to alleviate the environmental pressure of the lake, degradable leasehold shoes are specifically customized for visitors. The custom shoes are recycled after the tourists return them and are sent back to the factory for cleaning. A small cleaning fee of RMB 5/pair is charged. The factory has special cleaning machines for the shoes."

Photo credit: 央广网

A netizen asked Mr.Li: “Can I walk into the area barefoot?" Li replied that walking around with no shoes on can be an option if you don’t feel like putting on the plastic shoes offered. It won't affect your personal health and will not deteriorate the environment either.

Photo credit: Weibo

Since 2015, the number of tourists visiting the Chaka Salt Lake has continued to increase dramatically: 1.3 million tourists were counted in 2015 and 1.9 million tourists visited the site in 2016. In 2017, however, the number of visitors skyrocketed to 2.76 million with more than 1 million visits in August alone. Between April 26th and July 24th in 2018, Chaka Salt Lake saw another 1 million tourists visit its site. The scenic spot will reinforce its security measures and cleaning staff based on the growing number of tourists, thus taking more efforts to manage waste disposal and transportation.

What can we see on the spot is that tourists gather around the train’s terminal station and then walk along the road. They consciously rent and return the shoe covers back to the rental spot where they got them in the first place, after which the designated staff on site returns the money back to the visitors. Tourists are also beginning to consciously throw their trash into dustbins which will then be thrown into a big bag by the cleaning staff and handled accordingly.

Why would this Chaka Salt Lake have so much garbage everywhere? First of all, it’s about the quality-oriented education of the tourists; they need to cultivate a concept of protecting the environment. Secondly, it still needs more efforts in managing the environment; dustbins should be placed within a few meters from one another to avoid tourists littering while visiting the site. It is also suggested that calling in for reservations or enforcing set quotas for visitors could help remedy the situation. Price can be set based on peak and off-peak seasons to ensure more efforts are made towards protecting our environment while also securing sources of revenue for the area.

Thanks to everyone’s efforts, the Salt Lake is finally getting more and more attractive again.

Photo credit: bbs.zol.com.cn

Here a short video of the Salt Lake. Let's enjoy and respect this magnificent 'Mirror of the Sky’!

https://v.qq.com/txp/iframe/player.html?vid=q0749yss7ct&width=500&height=375&auto=0

Source: 中国新闻网

Supervisor: Crystal Huang

Editor: SC

Co-Editor: Ed Bellin

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