Why Nabil Hamade collects rusty nails

When Nabil Hamade runs in the morning in Dubai, he looks for nails or sharp objects that can puncture tyres.

When Nabil Hamade runs in the morning in Dubai, he looks for nails or sharp objects that can puncture tyres.

DUBAI // When it comes to doing their bit to protect the environment, some people recycle and others switch to energy-saving bulbs. Nabil Hamade collects nails. Every morning the Lebanese expatriate, who is running the Standard Chartered 2010 Dubai marathon next week, leaves his apartment block in Jumeirah Lake Towers and heads out on his training run around the residential area.

He returns an hour later with pockets full of rusty nails and screws that he has found discarded on the floor by workmen on the many sites surrounding the area. "Sometimes I cannot pick up any more because my pockets are full," he said. What began almost accidentally last year has become a compulsion to serve the community, he said, as he pointed to the two water bottles on his desk filled with nails he has collected in the past six months.

"In more than 25 years in the United States I had never had a flat tyre; when I moved here I had two within a year," he said. "Every time you have two or three nails in a tyre you have to replace it. It takes a quarter of a barrel of oil to make one medium car tyre, the equivalent of five tyres could supply power to an average apartment for a month. "How many flat tyres could these nails have contributed to 10, 15, 20? Everyone is told within their working life that they should be green and be good to the environment, but what do they do as individuals?"

Mr Hamade is environmentally conscious, not only because he works for an energy management consultancy but also because he believes that everyone should do their bit to protect their planet. "There is a recycling centre in The Greens which I take plastic and newspapers to, and I am currently changing all the light bulbs at home to energy-saving ones," he said. "I also try to minimise the use of plastic water bottles by refilling the two-litre bottles from a large water dispenser which, when it empties, I return to the manufacturer to refill."

For now the bottles filled with hundreds of nails sit on his office desk while he decides what to with them. His ideas so far include presenting his unusual treasure to the authorities in the hope they may be able to do something to help, or to have a "guess-how-many" competition at the next energy exhibition he attends. "The closest wins a prize," he suggested. Whatever Mr Hamade decides to do, he has no intention of stopping after next weekend's race.

"This is my neighbourhood," he said. "I live here and I don't want myself or a mother late for the school run to end up with a flat tyre. At least this is a small contribution." [e-mail]