ABU DHABI // What started as a school project turned into a realisation that the rapidly developing Reem Island has too few rubbish receptacles.
Yvette Peter created the clean-up project as part of her son’s community-engagement curriculum.
With her husband, Lee McLaren, they decided to make an event out of it, posting it to Facebook and targeting the waterfront as the clean-up location.
“The rocks along the way are stuffed with garbage, so we said let’s do a clean-up,” Ms Peter said. “We got a lot of response and collected 17 full trash bags of garbage, but still there’s more to clean up.”
Before they started the event, Tadweer Waste Management was told that there would be a need for a giant rubbish pick-up.
“You know why we were having trouble, we collected the bags and we notified waste management but they’re still out there,” she said. “I don’t know how to get them taken out of there.”
Ms Peter was concerned that the longer the bags remained, the more likely their contents would spill back on the beach.
“This is done to preserve the environment,” she said. “We don’t want all this waste to float into the beautiful sea, and we love it here. We love the ocean, it’s so beautiful, but it’s going to cause a lot of problems if those paper bags go into the ocean.”
Tadweer did not answer calls for comment.
A larger problem, Ms Peter said, was the lack of rubbish bins on the island.
“There are no bins at all, and actually we need to do a little education. If we can get people to be more aware, we still need to make them aware we can’t shove garbage into the rocks,” she said.
Steve Guerra, a school teacher and Reem Island resident, said the problem was ongoing.
“I’ve lived on Reem for quite some time, literally when the island only had a few cars, so I’ve seen the progression of wonderful buildings. Unfortunately, you have the beauty next to the ugly.”
He said that during the clean-up joggers thanked them for their efforts
A big part of the rubbish problem, Mr Guerra added, was a lack of education.
“Part of the problem is just people being lazy, but really there are no receptacles. You’ll see fishermen come eat dinner and they’ll just stuff the trash between the rocks.”
The group has now come together on Facebook and is now looking to set-up regular beach clean-ups in the community.
nalwasmi@thenational.ae
