Sunday, September 28, 2008

recycling in Bahrain

another quick blog....

After watching Mahmood's vlog about plastic and the recycling bins at Jawad, I packed up all of our recycling, got hubby to take it to the truck, and headed out there to drop it off.

hahahahah.... how ridiculous!!!!!

Their recycling bins are locked up, and it looks like no one has been there to pick up recycling in months, if at all. There are garbage bags lying around, opened, w/ stuff strewn all over the place, plastic bleach bottles on the ground... stuff everywhere.

The thing that got me the most though was the fact that the bins are padlocked! Who knows if they're full... who knows if they even pick stuff up from this place, but from the mess, I doubt it.

Sad thing to see, especially when ppl are getting so excited about recycling of plastic bags and such....

so... is there another place to take your recycling in Bahrain??? or do I just put it in the trash and know that it's killing this island... makes me wonder what this place will look like in a few years! Probably a lot like Cairo w/ it's embankments covered in trash... actually, they look like they're nothing but trash! Seriously ppl, where will all of this trash go??? Out to sea?? There's only so much room for this crap, and pretty soon this small, little island wont be able to hold it all... then what?????

15 comments:

Gaz said...

Unbelievable,England is going very "green"as they say,we have 2 wheely bins,one for house hold waste,the other for garden waste (grass cuttings)then we have another crate like thing for bottles and cans,a blue bag for old news papers and a bin with a lid for food waste.

Olivia said...

They're gonna bury it all and then build new houses on top!
(That's what they did in one part of my aunt's town in Canada.)

We were very green in Houston too, with a recycle box we'd put out one day, trash on another, and garden refuse on another...so it was a shock when I ended up in a part of London where there was very little recycling going on.

Gaz said...

Guess who i'm going for a drink with tommorow.........only Munther and Khalid,theyre in england to drop Moes brother off at uni then coming to Liverpool for a couple of days,let you know how it goes.

Rock Chef said...

Argh, this makes me mad - if a place is going to recycle it needs to do it properly.

As for the English/British/Scottish thing, it varies from person to person. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all parts of Great Britain, like the different states making up the USA. Someone from England is both English and British, someone from Scotland is both Scottish and British. Most have a preference for one or the other, eg most Scots prefer to be Scottish rather than British - I guess you get this in the USA, with people thinking of themselves as Texans rather than Americans?

One bit of extra fun is that an immigrant who changes their nationality becomes British, but not English, Scottish, Welsh, etc. Again I guess this happens in the USA, I could become a British American but not a Texan?

Um Naief said...

gazza, wow!!! have a wonderful time!!! is this the first time for meeting the two guys? hope you all have a blast, and talk about lots of things you can blog about! ;)

and you know, about the 'green' thing.. the States is very green in many states, and they do the whole recycling thing w/ different colored trash cans for the different things, like you talk about, so it was really a let down to come here and find they do nothing. every time i throw away stuff that could be recycled, makes me cringe a little more.

olivia, you know, if i'm not mistaken, we live on a trash dump site! yeah, hashim said it was one a long time ago... or rather, it was a land fill... which is the same thing, but he likes to think of it as not! ;)

i'm not surprised that new yorkers are into recycling. do business' get into it as well? in the States.. well, in texas, the offices were doing it or at least some. i think it takes a determined individual to make the jump and get everyone on board... but hey, that was years ago, so maybe times have changed a bit! :)

chief rock chef, as far as texans and such... ppl from texas are very proud to be texans. i think they do probably think of themselves as texans first and americans second, but i could be wrong about that. you gave me lots of interesting info. i had no idea about the whole scottish, british thing. very interesting.

i think in the states, you get ppl who identify w/ where they were born more so than anything else. for instance, i was born in indiana and i'm a hoosier at heart... but i don't consider myself that before an american. and.. if you came and became american, i don't think you'd be considered a british american... but maybe some would look at you like that!! ;)

Um Naief said...

oh yeah... i wanted to add that i find it very interesting how no bahrainis comment about this issue. ppl are really pushing using cloth bags for shopping now (instead of plastic) but when you get down to the nitty gritty of things, no one wants to talk about it!!!

The Moody Minstrel said...

Gee...recycling in Bahrain sounds a lot like the Japanese "attempt" at a Better Business Bureau, a so-called Consumer Protection Agency. Back in the late 90s a really fancy newspaper ad appeared telling of a new government agency that had been created just to address people's complaints about poor service, bad products, abusive business practices, etc.. But when people actually tried to call the number, they got a switchboard operator who had no idea what they were talking about. Finally someone pressed the issue enough to convince the switchboard operator to ask, and she found that yes, there was in fact such a service in the building. Unfortunately, the agent there who took the call did nothing but lecture the caller about "prudent buying practices" and then hang up.

There was a brief, explosive rant session about it in the opinion columns of many if not most of the English newspapers here. There was never any further mention of the "Consumer Protection Agency".

Maybe they discovered they had terrible service and shut themselves down...

Um Naief said...

moody, now that's funny!! :)

wow.. it does sound just like bahrain, altho they haven't tried creating either govt service yet. can only imagine it'd be the same thing.

there was a lot of hype a few mths back in the english paper about building a recycling plant, but no one can agree on where it'll be... they'll probably argue about this for a few more years... and then, if it's built.. i wonder what all it'll recycle. and that makes me wonder where all the stuff is going that they're 'supposedly' collecting for recycling...

obviously sitting at the recycling bins waiting to be collected.

Olivia said...

Oh New Yorkers love their cloth bags. Every store sells their own variation of it, even discount stores.

I had the nationality conversation with my Texan friends back in August. They do consider themselves to be Texans first, but it is a very unique state. In my last couple of years there, I was becoming quite proud to be one of them. There are the bumper stickers that say, "Naturalized Texan: I wasn't born here but I got here as fast as I could."

That was me :)
And indeed, despite being British first, then spending those years there as an adult, you couldn't really take the Texan out of me. I love that place!

To continue, being of mixed ancestry I have always called myself British, rather than English. Of course now I am an American. I sometimes try to also say "British American" which is how I was described on records at Christies Education London during my grad studies. It was quite a realization to see on paper...

The Moody Minstrel said...

"British American", m'lady? Isn't that a contradiction of terms? ;-)

Unknown said...

Hi my name is Jameela and I have set up a website about why, how and where to recycle in Bahrain.
Have a look at it here http://recyclepointsbh.webs.com/recyclewhere.htm

8322759844 said...

Hello, my name is Stacy and I am from Texas... we moved to Bahrain about 6 months ago, I would love to be in touch... I found your blog while looking for places to recycle.

Our daughter will be 1 in April 2009.

Thanks.

Um Naief said...

hi Stacy... I'm from Texas as well. moved here about 6 yrs ago. would love to connect. :)

email me hashimswife@gmail.com.

:)

Unknown said...

I think recycling is a great alternative to save our planet or decrease the pollution. I think this problem still have a sollution, just depend of us. We need to think about our vehaviour and make a change and start to make the difference.

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