The three-day Jeddah cleaning campaign, organized as part of Earth Day celebrations by the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) with the cooperation of Ahya district community center of Al-Rawdah district, Avarda environmental company and others, ended with a street cleaning campaign in Al-Rawdah district on Thursday. More than 600 young volunteers from the community participated in the event with the aim of protecting the environment and spreading awareness that recyclable material should be sorted at the source, in homes and offices and then deposited in bins which have different recycling compartments. During the cleaning program, special recycling bins were set up in substations every 500-600 meters on four streets in the district so that volunteer cleaners could deposit the materials they collected in the appropriate bin. “We are here to spread awareness that Jeddah is our city and we should keep it clean,” said Hassam Birsaly a Saudi youth. “It's my city and I hope our one-day event will change the attitude if not of all youth at least of some of them. That's why I came to participate in this campaign, and I would like to say to my fellow youth that it's our city and we have to take care of it,” he said. “Put the garbage in the bins not in the street, because our city is not a garbage bin,” he added. Jamal Abusabaa, the president of the Ahya community center of Al-Rawdah district and one of the organizers of the district cleaning campaign, said that he is looking forward to making the people who live in Al-Rawdah communicate with each other and help each other in solving their problems. “Our main target in today's campaign was to inform people who are living in Al-Rawdah about recycling, waste management and how to separate waste by sorting it into different containers. The volunteers did a great job today; while cleaning the streets, they taught the general public how to use the recycling bins,” he said. He added that Jeddah has community centers in all districts, and they have a social responsibility to their city and country, which is why the center in Al-Rawdah district decided to arrange a volunteer cleaning campaign. “I hope after seeing us, other districts will come forward and follow us. We know that it will take time to change the attitude and way of life in Saudi Arabia. But we will succeed,” Abusabaa said. Regarding a recent Saudi Gazette report that a mafia of illegal workers and African women are in control of recycling in Jeddah, Abusabaa said that these people were actually doing something good for the environment. “Maybe we should bring them under our umbrella, organize them, give them proper uniforms and let them do the job in a better way,” he said . Engineer Talal Abdullah Samarkandi, general manager of Architectura and an organizer of the Al-Rawdah cleaning campaign, said that the district community center is planning to go to different shopping malls and schools to educate the general public on how to deal with waste material. “We are planning to organize a competition in each school and give an award to the cleanest class in order to emphasize the importance of keeping our city clean and of dealing with garbage by separating discarded materials at source,” he said. Regarding the recycling mafia of illegal workers and African women, Samarkandi said that if recycling is done properly, there will be nothing left in garbage bins for such people to collect. “It is true that we should help others and those people are in need of help, but we should protect our country first and then those in need of help should go to the government,” he said.
