People volunteer to help clean up Pingyao county

More than 200 primary and middle school students joined a group of tour guides in helping spruce up the popular tourist site of Pingyao county, in North China’s Shanxi province, on June 20.

The volunteers were led by 10 sanitation workers in cleaning up Yingxunmen Square, a local landmark, by removing the garbage and weeds around the square and removing the writing and dirt on some fences around the lake.

The voluntary work was organized by the local Communist Youth League with the idea of using more social resources to help beautify this World Heritage county, according to Huo Xudong, the committee’s head, who added, “We hope to raise public awareness of protecting the old city and the environment.”

Pingyao has a history that dates back 2,700 years, and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list, in 1997, as one of the best preserved cities in the known world. It covers a 1,260-square-kilometer area and has 50,000 inhabitants.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw