Menace of sewage on the beach

For several months, raw sewage has been flowing out regularly onto Dubai's beaches, causing disgusting pollution and a serious health hazard. The reasons for this unacceptable situation are clear, but solving them remains difficult. Thousands of tanker drivers, who collect raw sewage from cesspits, have to queue for many hours at the sewage plant in Al Awir. Rather than wait, they illegally offload into the city's storm drains and the sewage flows through the pipes and into the sea.

The Municipality has tried to enforce the rules and so have the police. Tens of drivers have been caught and stern penalties enforced, but the problem persists. It is not possible to monitor all the drivers and all the storm drains.

However, a change in the payment system would affect all the drivers, all the time. At present, each driver is paid for each collection, not for each delivery to the sewage plant, making it very tempting to drop the load illegally and go back quickly to get another. What should happen is that the sewage treatment plant should be required to give a receipt to each driver for every offload properly done, and the payment to the drivers should only be done when they go back and present the receipt.