One million garbage bags and 20,000 garbage cans have been distributed to vessels navigating the 2,500-year-old Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal in an attempt to clean up China's longest and oldest canal.

 

According to the environmental protection bureau of east China's Jiangsu Province, the bags and cans will be used by 150,000 vessels to collect garbage along a 400-km stretch of the canal's southern section.

 

Carrying a total of 200,000 workers, the vessels produce a daily average of 101 tons of garbage and 5,373 kg of waste oil.

 

The garbage will be taken to a garbage treatment center, set up in 2006 at a cost of 28 million yuan (US$3.6 million). Some 17 garbage collection stations and 43 waste oil recycling plants have been put into operation in the area.

 

Meanwhile, Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, has invested 4 billion yuan (US$518 million) to curb pollution in the 18.1-km southernmost section of the canal in the city.

 

Linking Hangzhou with Beijing, the 1,794-kilometer Grand Canal is the longest and oldest man-made waterway in China. It dates back to the 5th Century BC and has been serving as a major north-south artery after being completed in the 13th Century.

 

The canal still has 1,000 navigable kilometers, with four major ports each handling more than 30 million tons of freight annually. The rest of the canal has dried up or stagnated.

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2007)