(TITC) - All the effort has been paid since the reduction of floating foam on the sea surface of Ha Long Bay and all kinds of garbage are collected and treated daily.
The sea is clear in a blue colour, there is almost no garbage left since the end of May 2023, Mr. Do Tien Thanh, officer in charge of environmental sanitation under Ha Long Bay Management Board said to VNExpress.
In past time, looking at pictures and descriptions of Ha Long Bay, which is beautiful but lot of garbage, leaves many regrets with tourists, Mr. Thanh said, at that time, this was the time when Quang Ninh launched a volunteer force to clean up illegal aquaculture cages at sea and convert foam buoys used for aquaculture to plastic ones.
Back to that time, a lot of foam buoys, rafts were removed and drifted on Bai Tu Long Bay, Ha Long Bay (Quang Ninh province) and Lan Ha Bay of Hai Phong City.
Ha Long Bay (Photo: TITC)
After several days of collection, the authority has collected about 10,000 m2 of foam buoys. Currently, a small number of foam buoys brought to the islands are being cleaned up by the bay management. The collected foam buoys will be gathered at the old Bai Chay ferry wharf and then brought to the garbage treatment plant, pressed into shapes as raw materials for incinerators for cement production.
According to Mr. Thanh, due to the strict control, there is no garbage in Ha Long Bay. Since 2019, tourists are not allowed to bring plastic bottles, plastic bags on the boat to the bay. The control is carried out at the passenger terminal ticket counter.
Garbage in Ha Long Bay is from the ocean, from cities along the bay and from fishermen's activities. Therefore, there are three units that organise garbage collection in the bay every day. Each month, they collect about 14 tons of garbage, mostly garbage left by attractions. Garbage collected on the surface of the bay accounts for 1/3 of the amount.
At 4pm daily, ferries bring the collected garbage to the wharf to collect it and then immediately move them to the city's landfill for treatment. In addition to the Ha Long Bay Management Board, the Ha Long City People's Committee also organises daily garbage collection along the coast.
Ha Long Bay boasts an area of 1,553 km2, including 1,969 large and small islands, most of which are limestone islands, of which the core area of the bay is 335 km2 with 775 islands. In 1994, the core area of Ha Long Bay was recognized by UNESCO as a world natural heritage with aesthetic value and was re-recognized for the second time with its outstanding global value in geology and geomorphology in 2000.
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