Saving environment
Ido not think protecting the environment makes much difference to the Prime Minister or rather to any of his ministers. Their preoccupation with significant urgent issues makes the environment a secondary issue.
If I was an adviser to the Prime Minister, and I know I will not be, I would advise him to take simple steps to make Kuwait’s environment much better.
I say this because we have the potential -- the equipment, the volunteers (citizens and expatriates) and the government and non-government organizations and environmental institutions – all waiting for a green light from the Prime Minister.
The government alone is responsible for the damage that has been done to the environment by the recent heavy rainfall. And this happens almost the same time every year.
This situation of our country has remained the same and time and time again we have proved that this happens only because of corruption in the ‘roads maintenance department’. It is so absurd when we call these unexpected situations.
The government has failed year after year to punish the corrupt and negligent officials and these officials have become so accustomed to looting the government that they believe it is just like another part of custom and tradition.
The elimination of this phenomenon or even containing it gradually has become difficult because of government inaction or perhaps because it is unwilling to activate control or hand over the issue to anti-corruption agencies.
The evidence of this is what happened to the Kuwait Anti-Corruption Authority which has become a victim of unnecessary problems. Some have called for reducing the salaries of employees as if the problem can be solved by reducing the salaries, while at times hesitating for umpteen times to take action against owners of the camps who leave behind piles of waste and damage the environment. This means this scenario will continue to repeat in future.
The cooperative societies and thousands of supermarkets which have flourished all over the country and other shops including the groceries use hundreds of thousands of plastic shopping bags which find their way to the garbage bin or continue to fly in the air during sand storms or windy days. Every year millions of plastic bottles and other products made of plastic are not recycled.
To deal with the waste of plastic bags, for example, we need to follow the example of the developed countries. In these countries the shoppers have to pay for the plastic bags and this encourages them to bring their own shopping bags.
The laboratory tests have proved that the water flowing in our taps if filtered is safe for human consumption and is much safer than consuming bottled water manufactured by several companies.
It is therefore necessary to inform the citizens and residents about this fact. It is much safer to consume water supplied by the government. This will inevitably reduce the consumption of bottled water which indirectly will protect the environment.
The giant Saudi company Aramco has recently issued a warning that most of the bottled water sold in Saudi Arabia in unfit for consumption, particularly the cheap brands.
I write this article but will not feel sorry if the government does nothing about it. From the commercial point of view the application will not benefit me.