‘Ant-men’ pick litter along Yangtze River
Print Edition
EVERY morning at 7am, Li Shuangxi and his wife can be seen bending over and getting up, and bending over again on the marshlands of the Yangtze River in Yichang in central China.
The couple are not doing their morning exercise, however, as their rubber-gloved hands and the plastic bags slung over their arms indicate, they are litter picking along China’s longest river.
Soon a dozen other people joined them. Bags of trash began to pile up by the roadside, waiting to be collected and sent to collecting stations. Less than an hour later the group has left, disappearing into the flow of morning commuters.
“We call ourselves ‘ant-men,’” said Li, a hairdresser. “All we do is pick up trash along the Yangtze for around half an hour every day.”
Last November, Li read a story about a young foreigner who volunteered to clean up the rubbish in his local river every morning and became inspired.
“I was born and raised along the Yangtze. I have no problem getting up a little bit earlier to do something for my mother river every day,” Li said.
He bought garbage bags and gloves right away and began his own endeavor the next day.
Yichang is located in the Three Gorges, one of the most splendid sections of the Yangtze. From a viewing point in the city’s river park, Li could only see sand and mud. But when he approached the river, he could see all sorts of waste half-buried beneath the slush.
The couple collected about 50 kilograms of trash on their first day, another 100 kg on the second, and over 200 kg on the third day.
“The marshlands were like a garbage dump,” Li said.
Later he posted photographs and a description about what he was doing on his WeChat account.
After a month, about 100 people had joined him. He had “co-workers.”
In October, Li set up a volunteer group called “Three Gorges Ant-men,” which now has over 300 registered members.
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