Reduce, reuse and recycle
The Gulf News recycling campaign is a wonderful initiative and it should continue (“The world is facing a plastic crisis”, April 14). We see that the awareness levels among people has to increase further, to bring about a culture wherein every citizen or human being contributes to the elimination of waste, and recycles. We are in a dire situation and we need to focus more on saving the planet. I go for a daily walk to the park in the neighbourhood and it is a horrible sight on Saturdays as the park has been ravaged by people on Friday. There is food and plastic strewn around and it looks worse than a crash site. I can understand that the park employees take a lot of effort and make it a clean place, but sadly, the people who visit the park have not taken the responsibility to keep it clean. They can easily sort out the waste and avoid bringing lots of plastic. The park authorities will eventually charge everyone a normal fee and we all have to pay the tax because of a few unworthy acts. We need to create more awareness and educate the public to do away with plastics. I think India has been a pioneer in environment management. We have been using banana leaves for centuries and this is a bio degradable plate. We have used coconut shells as containers and I think this should be further studied and implemented wherever possible.
From Mr Murugesh S. S. Sivam
Dubai
Taking a stand on plastic
I am so pleased that Gulf News is addressing the issue of excess plastic here in the UAE . Since January, I made my own personal pledge to reduce, reuse, recycle and refuse plastic. This has been a steep learning curve but there are some organisations here doing a great job to help clean up plastic waste across the UAE. I have joined clean ups with the ABCD Beach Clean Up, Ras Al Khaimah recycling and Environment Agency Abu Dhabi. The articles were helpful and informative. However, the article about UAE supermarkets was very one sided. Most of the produce in all of the big supermarkets is covered in plastic, a lot of which cannot be recycled. There are a number of items we can only buy in plastic containers such as milk and yoghurt. The only bags, which can be used, that are provided for fruit and vegetables, are plastic. At the checkout counter, customers are encouraged to take numerous plastic bags. There are no charges made for plastic bags or no discounts given for bringing your own bags. In fact, I often have to stop staff putting my stuff in plastic bags. As far as ‘bio degradable plastic’ goes, this is just misleading. Many of these plastics give off poisonous gases when decomposing and if the bags are not disposed properly, they end up either being consumed by animals on land or by sea. It should be compulsory for all of these supermarkets to provide recycling bins outside their premises for plastic, aluminium, card, glass and tin cans. Why not carry on with this focus and have a pledge against plastic page every week? There are plenty of interesting projects happening in the UAE.
From Ms Alison Sriparam
UAE
Editor’s Note: The suggestions have been raised with the management and are being looked into.
Not comfortable using Facebook
In today’s world, a phone is an extension of a person’s body, laptops are so commonly seen that it can no longer be considered a ‘luxury’, and the social media culture has people revealing so much more than they actually realise (“Zuckerberg’s Facebook hearing was a sham”, Gulf News, April 12). If you think no one knows you better than you know yourself, you’re wrong. There is no limit to how manipulative a person can be in order to get something they want, and although that’s dangerous on its own, it’s amplified with the power to influence the way people think. That’s why this matter is so important. People’s thoughts and opinions can change with a few articles, be it from a credible source or not. With the world at its hostile worst, the repercussions are numerous. Knowing all this, I do feel uncomfortable using Facebook. It’s baffling to know that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth has increased to a whopping $3.2 billion (Dh11 billion) because of his apologies in front of Congress at Washington. I wouldn’t buy into anything he’s saying until there’s some drastic change. How do we know that Cambridge Analytica is the only company with user data?
From Ms Rohini Gopal
Singapore
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