Cleaning up in the air

An employee rappels down a cliff to collect garbage along Huashan Mountian in Northwest China's Shaanxi province, May 10, 2012. A total of 146 sanitationmen bustle around the 2100-meter-tall mountain, which is famous for its sheer cliffs and plunging ravines, every day at 6:00 am before visitors arrive. Each of them is in charge of clearing waste on 200-meter sections, most of which are steep. Garbage is collected once or twice a week. They live in caves for most of the year, and go down the mountain twice a month. A total of 180 tons of garbage are put away by the squad every year, who assume an extra mission of preventing suicides. [Photo/CFP]