JEDDAH, 2 February 2006 — A number of citizens, especially construction contractors, have taken advantage of the absence of municipality enforcement to transform empty lands in Jeddah into garbage dumps, Al-Madinah newspaper reported recently.
Many contractors have been found to be dumping refuse from their construction projects on these empty lands without the knowledge of the landowners. The lack of a clearly defined punitive system is one of the primary causes of this infraction.
Marwan Al-Ghadi, from Al-Nahda neighborhood, puts the blame on the municipality’s lack of supervision of empty lands. He said that people that have homes built do not care about what happens to the garbage created by the construction. According to un-enforced regulations, contractors are supposed to use special containers for garbage disposal.
“Many of the empty lands in Al-Nahda neighborhood are now garbage dumps. The scene is terrible and is attributed to the lack of supervision by the municipality. Many of the landowners were extremely angry when they saw the way their land looked after it was filled with garbage. They were not even notified,” said Ghadi.
Abdullah Al-Ghamdi said that anyone who wants to make construction could easily dump their garbage on the nearest empty land with impunity.
Ahmad Al-Hamrani said, thanks to a buildup of trash, many of the plots in his neighborhood have suffered from price reductions. He said that buyers know they will have to pay for cleanup.
“Many landowners have protected their land by building walls around it to stop people from throwing garbage. Those that cannot will be surprised when they see their land one day full of garbage,” said Al-Hamrani.
According to Omar Al-Humaidan, president of the municipality’s branch in the locality, there are teams working to monitor violators, but asked for locals to report infractions. He said that they caught and fined many violators in the past.
