There were 460 dustmen on duty in Tiananmen Square on National Day. On that day, nearly 8 tons of rubbish were cleared out by them.

Empty water bottles, food packages, cigarette ends, etc. were found in the square. What was the situation for the dustmen during that day? The reporters took a special investigation on them in order to learn more details.

It was 12:00 p.m. when reporters saw a dustman clearing the rubbish thrown away by tourists in Tiananmen Square. She was working for a house keeping company of Beijing and was hired as a sanitation worker during National Day. She was so busy during the holiday that she could not stop working during the interview with the reporter. After less than 15 minutes when reporters walked with her, one of her rubbish bin was full. She got up on 1:00 a.m. and worked till the time when she was being interviewed. She could only have a short break when having a lunch.

At around 1:00 p.m., reporters saw some dustmen sitting on one side of greening belts to eat fast food, and learned that it was actually an ordinary situation for dustmen to bare such heavy clearing work on holidays. The first three days were the busiest days for them for there were much more visitors than ordinary days. More than 460 dustmen were arranged to work in the square while over 100 were arranged on usual days.

As it is introduced by the dustman who has worked in Tiananmen Square for nearly 10 years that most visitors felt too far away to keep the rubbish and throw them in rubbish bins, so they just threw it casually. Though most of the dustmen can understand travels, they still hope visitors can bring some plastic bags with them to reserve the rubbish first and then throw them into rubbish bins when it is convenient. If everybody followed this way, it would greatly helpful to ease the clearing work. But reporters observed that few visitors took the bags.

It was learned that there were about 8 tons of rubbish cleared out on National Day in Tiananmen Square, which was about 25% more than last year.

The reason why the rubbish was far more than that in the last year is that there were much more visitors traveling to Beijing this year. Together with Middle Autumn Festival and National Day, toll free for station wagons and good weather were all the key reasons to attracted visitors.

More clearing machines and dustmen were arranged to carry out the clearing work in Tiananmen Square to ensure the comfortable environment for visitors. They kept three- shift working mechanism and 24 hours on duty to meet the requirement of rubbish being cleared away within 20 minutes.