Litter
UAE is a rich country. That’s not to deny there are poor people but on the whole it’s a rich place. We have nice cities, nice spaces both publicly and privately, Our new buildings are positively smart with marble floors and fancy decoration, lots of glass and chrome and shiny bright jingly bits that add a glitzy opulence to even a pretty run of the mill apartment block.
In public areas we have lots of block pathways that are kept up by an army of low paid but willing municipal workers.
It’s nice.
So why do people throw litter everywhere? It’s not as if there are no bins. There are litter bins all over in public areas and the back streets and alleys teem with dumpsters. Even the motorways have dumpsters and bins by the illegal truck stops!
Yet I watch people throw litter all the time.
There’s a house next to the apartments where I live. I one story local place inhabited by young Sri Lankan men; eight or nine of them perhaps more. Until a week ago there was a huge sandpile next to their building from the construction site opposite. Then it was cleared by the builders. Where the pile was is now an unofficial parking lot.
In one week by the outside of the wall of the house a pile of litter has appeared. Rubbish sacks, plastic cups, packaging, peelings. I wondered. But yesterday as I was leaving to fetch my car and walking across the parking lot I was nearly hit by a rubbish sack sailing over the wall from the house. Closely followed by a Styrofoam cup. Words were exchange but mostly all I got was the annoying passive shoulder shrug of someone who doesn’t understand and doesn’t give a toss. When I got home I found some garbage sacks and cleared the pile. Put the sacks in the dumpster on the other side of the house.
This morning there are more bags and cans and cups.
There’s a cafeteria opposite our building. This is a local phenomenon that you used to get all over UAE but is not allowed anymore in Dubai and Sharjah. Te cafeteria has no tables or eating space yet neither is it a takeaway. You pull up in your car and honk your horn (don’t get me started on that one!). Eventually a waiter staggers out and brings you a tea and takes any other order you may have. Water and cigarettes are common. Then you sit in your car and drink your tea and perhaps eat a shawarma sandwich and leave. But before you leave you drop your cup and sandwich wrappings and the cellophane from your cigarettes on the ground. Occasionally the waiter comes and picks up some of the litter. Never all of it and often none. The leavings pile up for a few weeks and sometimes the council will send a team in to do a sweep through. There’s a dumpster for the cafeteria. I often watch the staff throw things at it and miss. They never pick it up. The council empties the dumpster every couple of days. They are not responsible for the rotting pile on the ground. The cafeteria only clears it when it gets too smelly.
I watch kids and their parents eat a burger from one of the fast food joints around here. I watch them all throw the case and paper wraps on the ground and walk away. I watch people buy cigarettes and throw the wrappers on the ground before getting in their car. I watch people throw tea bags out of car window while they’re parked followed later by the cup. I watch kids throw empty cans away without a thought and I watch their parent do the same.
There is a total lack of pride in the environment. A ‘don’t care’ attitude that you might, just, forgive in an expat labourer who’s just passing through but seems bizarre in a well off Emirati family whose home this is.
I used to live in Sharjah near the Buhairah Corniche. This is an upmarket area on the creek full of smart tower blocks and shops and cafes. It also has a wide green running the length of the cornice where at weekends families come and picnic by the water.
If you visit just at dusk on a Friday you will be greeted by a sea of litter – paper, cans, plastic cups, bags, all sorts. People have their picnic and just leave the mess. Including uneaten foodstuffs. It is certainly not possible for others to follow where someone was before without a major clean up exercise, which never happens either. The council clears up overnight here. Very effectively in fact. But by mid morning the next day it’s all reappearing. More slowly than the weekend but just as inexorably.
There are plenty of litter bins by the way including recycling bins for glass, paper and cans. They are empty most of the time.
I am embarrassed for these people. This is not a third world hellhole with no money. These are well off people in nice surrounding. They have no dignity.
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