From September 1, all of the services at the Halong Bay world heritage site will no longer use plastic water bottles. Tourists are also requested to stop bringing anything posing a risk to the environment in this special area.
According to an announcement issued by the Halong Bay Management Board on August 4, all of the service providers in fields of kayaking, cruise ships, high-speed canoes, souvernir shops and so on will top using and selling plastic water bottles and straws from September 1.
Previously, on August 1, 15 companies supplying kayaking and canoing services started to use paper cups and glass bottles instead of plastic one.
A huge quantity of rubbish is considered a burning problem at the Halong Bay world natural heritage site. In the first half of this year, the total amount of solid rubbish was 573 tons including 220 tons collected along the coastal areas and 353 tons of trash floating at off-shore places. Particulary, about 10 tons of rubbish are collected per day during some peak days of the tourist season.
It costs roughly VND 14 billion per year to collect and put this huge amount of solid waste under treatment, however, this amount of money tends to be not enough due to increasing demand of treating all sorts of waste, especially plastic one. Therefore, this new regulation is expected to be the province's significant move to improve this situation.
Translated by Phuong Loan
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