Tourists trash Forbidden City moat(2)

One of them, a tourist surnamed Liu from Henan Province, threw a corncob into the moat after he finished it.

"I didn't notice there were trash cans," he said. Then he admitted that the look of the garbage-strewn moat is ruining the city's image.

"I won't do it again," he said.

A resident, surnamed Yu, said he went to the Forbidden City from time to time and seeing piles of garbage around the moat is rather common, especially during the long holidays.

"It's certainly not a good sight at such a world-famous tourist attraction," he said.

"The trash cans are often full and people have nowhere else to put the garbage," he said, noting that there should be more rubbish bins.

"The main problem is still the bad manners of the tourists," he said.

Guo Ning, a cleaner from Dongcheng Environmental Sanitation Engineering Group, which is responsible for the cleaning in the area, said their job is to clean the garbage on the ground not in the moat, as they do not have the right equipment.

Guo said that there are dozens of trash cans alongside the moat and they empty them every day.

"The more the tourists throw garbage in the moat, the more people will take that for granted and follow their behavior," she said.

Both Zheng and Guo said they are not authorized to tell tourists not to throw garbage around. Even when she is picking up trash, other tourists are throwing it away, said Guo.

A local resident surnamed Wang, who said he often walked around the moat with his son, said the garbage dumping problem is serious.

"The bad manners of some tourists from outside the city make the city look bad here," he said, noting that he saw them throwing garbage into the moat when the trash cans were just a few meters away.

An employee from the Worker's Cultural Palace, who would not give her name, said she knew about the issue but refused to comment Tuesday.