Abu Dhabi
A few days ago, I had lodged a complaint with the Abu Dhabi Municipality regarding litter in Abu Dhabi’s Mussafah area. They took immediate action and sent me photographs of the area after the clean up work. I appreciate the efforts of the municipality, but two days later the place had become a dumping ground again.
I like to live in a clean and safe environment and am always doing my bit. But, the residents are all equally responsible for littering in the capital. I agree that there is a problem in the industrial areas, where a lot of workers reside and the high population may result in more litter produced. Each morning piles of garbage gets collected, but the same amount is dumped by the end of the day. A solution needs to be found to this problem as soon as possible.
However, within the city, I have noticed that residents of a higher income group also indulge in littering. I notice this behaviour day in and day out in the area where I live. People visit cafeterias and then leave the trash below their own or any other parked vehicle and drive off. I have tried confronting someone, but was threatened in return.
I think that an awareness campaign and classes needed to be conducted in schools, universities and offices to ensure that people are educated on the disadvantages of littering. I think that fines are not the solution, because people continue to litter despite them. They need to be punished by serving a certain number of hours of community service, such as cleaning a street.
A clean city is one that all the residents would like. It’s thus the responsibility of every resident to participate in keeping the city clean.
— The reader is an operations manager based in Abu Dhabi.
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