Dubai: More than 125,000 eco-conscious UAE residents will fan out across seven emirates over 10 days in December as part of the 14th annual Clean Up UAE Campaign organised by Emirates Environmental Group, officials said on Monday.
Set to launch on December 5, the grass roots clean-up will collect all forms of recyclable materials with a view to keeping garbage from entering landfill sites — the campaign’s primary goal since its inception in 2002.
At the official launch in Dubai on Monday, organisation leaders said that last year, 123,176 volunteers helped to collect 94 tonnes of solid waste, ultimately diverting recyclables from a lifetime buried in burgeoning landfill sites in the UAE.
The slogan for this year’s campaign is ‘Exploiting Nature, Exploiting their Future – Get up and Clean-Up!’ and will target prime areas such as beaches, marine and desert spaces.
Habiba Al Marashi, Chairperson and founder of EEG, said the aim of the campaign is to enhance and protect UAE’s environment through grass roots efforts and cultivating broader environmental awareness.
The campaign was launched through the brand new EEG website.
For the first time in 24 years since its inception EEG has launched its very own Arabic website. Habiba said that “it is a very proud moment for all of us at EEG to be able to launch its first ever Arabic website. I always felt that there was something missing from me connecting with the community and I hope through this we can engage and interact with more people”.
“The goal for this year is to signify working collaboratively towards making the world a cleaner place to live in and, more importantly, to realise that it falls under the responsibility of individual to take action,” she said, “in order to keep the world clean you have to get your hands dirty and clean up your own mess.”
