Photos: Careless campers leave garbage in the desert in Kuwait

In September, the government announced that setting up camping tents are prohibited this year as a means of curbing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Although camping season was canceled, many people began going on day trips to the desert and setting up makeshift camps, otherwise known in Kuwaiti as a Kashta.

As Kashta’s are becoming a popular weekend activity, the trash left behind has increased drastically.

Bulk of the garbage left behind is some form of plastic. Plastic is one of the most harmful materials as it takes around 10-20 years for plastic bags to decompose and around 450 years for plastic bottles.

Another negative impact of unattended trash is that with time it becomes rotten and thus turns into a home to diseases and a breeding ground for cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes.

While most go to the desert to camp, this year, it has become increasingly popular for people to set up their temporary camp site on the beach. The plastic left behind is one of the main water pollutants, with approximately 100,00 marine creatures dying each year due to plastic entanglement.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, plastic makes up 40 per cent of the world’s ocean surfaces and if continued at this current rate, by 2050 plastic is expected to outnumber all the fish in the sea.

Still amidst a pandemic, some of the trash left behind is single-use protective wears, like masks and gloves. A single mask can produce millions of micro plastics, which are absorbed by animals and enters the food chain, which eventually reaches humans. The cycle works like this: a fish eats a micro plastic mistaking it for plankton (the organism that they eat), humans eat the fish thus ingesting plastics.

Article 33 of the Kuwaiti environmental law stipulates that “it is prohibited to throw garbage or wastes of any kind except in the containers designated for that”. Although it is illegal to litter, the governmental entities do not have enough manpower to ensure that people do not leave their trash behind them.