Sharjah: Hundred and fifty people were fined between Dh1,000 and Dh50,000 over the past six months for going through waste bins to collect material such as paper, cartons, metallic objects and plastics and selling them to companies.
Yousef Al Ahmad, Head of the Solid Waste Department at Sharjah Municipality, said that going through bins is uncivilised and that the Municipality is trying to curb this phenomenon by enforcing the fines and conducting periodic checks.
He added the Municipality divided Sharjah into 11 sectors, and each sector into eight to four areas and assigned an inspector for each of these area to monitor the bins. There are about 10,000 waste bins in Sharjah.
Most of the offenders were illegal workers. Al Ahmad explained that they go out at night, taking advantage of the absence of the inspectors. But, he said, members of the municipality are monitoring them closely and reporting them to the departments in charge of handling such infringements.
Some of the offenders have regular jobs in the morning, and those caught bin raiding are reported to their companies in order for them to take necessary measures to stop them. He added that almost 6-10 cases are caught each month.
Raiding waste bins is considered a violation of Municipality property, as there is a special recycling plant for the various types of waste, Al Ahmad said.
