A Kazakh resident took to social media after visiting Big Almaty Lake (BAL) to complain about scattered garbage. The Ile-Alatau State National Nature Park responded to the complaint, infohub.kz reports.
On the social network Threads, a user under the handle ayanilyuna said she had recently visited BAL. According to her, despite it being a weekday, there were many visitors. On one hand, she was glad people were not staying home, but on the other, she was unpleasantly surprised by the amount of litter and by people's behavior.
"It's just a disgrace! There is an outrageous amount of garbage! In front of us, guys around 18 were sitting on a rock. There was trash lying next to them. So they just got up and left, leaving everything behind. We didn't even immediately realize that someone could just leave their garbage and walk away like that. And we didn't manage to say anything to them in time. I have never understood what the problem is with taking with you what you brought yourself," the author of the post wrote.
In the comments, the press service of the Ile-Alatau State National Nature Park addressed the situation. According to their information, the area around Big Almaty Lake is cleaned daily, including before the main flow of visitors arrives.
"This location sees high visitor numbers. Unfortunately, some vacationers do not follow the rules for staying in a specially protected natural area and leave garbage behind. With a constant flow of tourists, pollution also occurs after cleanup work has been carried out," the press service said.
The national park also urged visitors to comply with environmental requirements, take their garbage with them and treat the environment with care.