A few decades ago environmental degradation and pollution was rarely taken seriously. It received little attention in some places and no attention at all in many others.
The problem has since developed into a national concern and now threatens to widen further unless urgent preventive measures are taken.
Pollution is expected to increase in major cities, its adverse effects no longer confined to urban centers.
Rural areas, too, will not be spared the devastation. Anyone visiting the smallest of hamlets will see plastic bags and other waste material hanging from trees and scattered around. Walking along the beach you will notice inorganic trash as well as organic material, including food, strewn on the ground. Usually, nearby rubbish containers remain unused.
Carbon, sulfur and nitrogen gases are polluting cities in amounts far exceeding the sanctioned limits thus affecting peoples’ health. Sewage and the effluent of human and industrial processes pollute beaches and recreation centers.
Household waste collected each year in Saudi Arabia amounts to ten million tons the larger part of which is either buried or burned without the observation of proper health arrangements.
This is compounded by the many industries and factories built close to residential area which send gases and other refuse into the air and dispose of their waste in nearby sites. It all builds into an appalling health and environmental hazard.
We don’t need new laws and regulations so much as we need the strict enforcement of existing legislation. Many before me have called for stiffer penalties including heavy fines and other social penalties to be imposed on those who pollute our beaches.
More than an official have told me that laws stipulating such penalties are already there.
If this is true, why haven’t they been implemented? Pollution affects our health as well as the health of those who will come after us. I hope it is given due consideration.
