The plans for play areas, grassy parks and entertainment facilities that adorn the concealing board fences along the perimeter of the works display the wonders to come. The scheme is a noble one and will assuredly be an invaluable contribution to the enjoyment of the Corniche for the inhabitants of and visitors to the city.
One small problem, or indeed thousands of iterations of the same small problem, casts a shadow on the continuing beauty of the coastline parkland: plastic bags.
Noted local environmentalist and seasoned diver Hans Sjoeholm shudders at the words. “When you throw one away it’s not the end of anything,” he said. “It’s the beginning of a process.”
The bag, he explained, would almost invariably find its way into the food chain by breaking down by photo-degradation (the action of sunlight) into molecule size pieces that marine life ingests. If you eat the seafood, you will get your bag — or somebody else’s — back. “It may take years — it may not even reach you in your lifetime — but just like fictional robot the Terminator, it will be back!”
It would be unfair to blame the bag alone, as they are but one of many species of plastic life that will manifest itself over a relatively short period of time on the newly laid verdancy of the expensive green space. Many travel slightly further seaward and settle comfortably on the shore forming great friendly colonies lining the waters edge.
“There has been a very welcome increase in the numbers of municipal workers collecting the garbage,” said Sjoeholm. “However, the more they collect the more seem to appear to replace it.”
Organizer of many beach “cleanup” days, Sjoeholm, along with groups of keen divers and fishermen, plays his part in trying to restore the balance. “The only way to stop the pollution is to stop it at source — and the source is the person who throws the rubbish. It’s a process of education and enlightenment. And that,” he said with emphasis,” is going to be a long process, as experience in Europe has shown.”
Dumb creatures all, the bags’ companions in the form of food trays and water bottles traditionally follow the pioneering efforts of the plastic bag. They arrive not under their own power but cunningly use renewable energy — wind power — or organically powered transport — humans. Their green mode of transport, however, does not make them green in any sense other than that occasionally, that is their color.
The humans that visit the green areas that already dot Jeddah and provide welcome green lungs in the body of the Bride seem happily to coexist with these inorganic visitors. Happy humans provide transport, place them on the ground and leave them behind to enjoy themselves in their own unique hydrocarbonic way. Generally that involves making friends with cats and rodents, as the plastic visitors often carry the remains of food that their human transporters left with them.
The result is that the next wave of human visitors are greeted with the unhappy sight of a green pleasure park or sandy seashore populated with a malodorous infestation of plastic litter and food, often home to feral cats and rats seeking to exist on scraps. Seabirds prowl the shoreline ingesting scraps of plastic and later die horribly of digestive tract congestion.
Given the huge investment by the government and the Jeddah municipality to beautify a public area that is already a feature of the city and give generous opportunity for recreation on that rarest commodity of all in a desert — well kept grass — is it not the responsibility of the visitor to keep it clean for others who also wish to enjoy it a little later?
Sure, Jeddah’s tireless cleaners, the army of Purple People, tackle the Sisyphean task of cleaning up. The whole essence of responsibility, however, is that the filthy mess should not be there in the first place.
Worst of all, tiny children play in this stuff, running the risk of disease and learning what? It is OK to throw your garbage on the ground?
By discarding litter and failing to take responsibility for its safe and proper disposal, we are insulting the efforts of the municipality to create a better environment for us and simultaneously teaching our children very effectively by our example that even though we throw the stuff away, it is not our responsibility because someone else will pick it up. “No way,” observes Sjoeholm sharply. “Take it home or you or your grandchildren might end up eating it.”
With this new and exceedingly expensive coastal development, perhaps it is time to start with a clean, green sheet.
And keep it that way.
