Friday, April 21, 2006

You read it here first

In a span of 2 days, two articles appeared in local newspapers covering topics I have covered in my blog. Well actually, they are topics my friend S. covered in the monthly newsletter she sends out.

First, the water conservation issue in yesterday's 7Days, which I discussed here. DEWA, in association with the Body Shop, has launched an awareness campaign to decrease the consumption of water. Apparently water consumption is highest in labourer camps (with 700 litres a day per person). This is all good, but, as an astute reader mentions in today's 7Days, when was the last time you saw a labourer at the Body Shop?

Then, the plastic waste issue in today's Emirates Today, which I had discussed in this post. This is killing hundreds of animals every year: they ingest plastic bags and other plastic items discarded by careless individuals, which ends up causing suffocation or starvation.

It's good to see these issues are finally getting some exposure. The UAE is a long way from being an environmentally-friendly country, and we really must start doing something about this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Last Friday, walking back home after work AND in a very bad mood, I saw a woman throw a plastic water bottle on the ground. Since I was already pumped up and her gesture angered me, I called her on it and told her to find a garbage can to throw her garbage away. She had the gall to insult me and tell me that it gave work to others! F*cking B*tch! Oh man, you have no idea how mad I was, so much that I was uncharactiscally mean and very impolite to her.

Now, explain this to me (i'm going to try to be politically correct and hopefully, since you know me, you'll know I'm not "that type" of person...): this lady was not a native Québec/montrealer. She was probably from a place where they treat their own living space as a trash can. How can she come here for a better life (I assume), and still treat the streets as her own personnal trash can? I rarely see Montrealers do that!

To me it is a pride thing. I want my city to be clean. It's like when everybody complains about how dirty bathrooms are and they're the ones pissing beside the bowl and not cleaning up their mess!!!

Anyway... PRIDE people PRIDE! Doesn't that count for something?

nzm said...

That 700l figure per labourer makes me wonder how they arrived at that.

No labourer spends that much time in the camps to use 700l of water, unless they stand under the shower all night!

Surely that amount being attributed to them includes more than what they use for their personal use. It probably accounts for all the water being delivered to building sites, as well as all the water being used for irrigation in the city.

We were in a service station by Ibn Battuta last night filling up the Honda. In comes this water truck that had obviously been overfilled or had serious leaks. In the time that it was in the gas station, about 100l must have been lost. So wasteful.