These People Do Not Love Kuwait! Camping Season Ends – Desert Environment Badly Damaged by Campers

KUWAIT: Different kinds of garbage and waste near a desert camp.

KUWAIT TIMES: The camping season is over starting from the beginning of this month and, according to the law, people are obliged to remove their tents and camps by March 31. Any existing camp after this date is illegal, and the Municipality team will remove it. But a more serious issue than the illegal tents are the remains and waste left littering the natural environment. The desert environment is seriously suffering from damage and harm caused by careless people, as they litter their camping site with different kinds of garbage and waste.

This bad behavior is not controlled, as the Municipality decree to make campers pay an insurance payment was not applied yet. This decree would enforce people to clean their site after they remove their camp to get their money back. Ahmad Al-Hazim, Head of the Farwaniya Governorate branch of the Municipality, said although this decree was proposed previously, it was not approved by the Municipal Council yet due to disagreements on the amount of insurance.

“It was first proposed to be KD 500 and then it was reduced to KD 200. I think it will hopefully be applied next season ( at the end of this year). This will give us better control over campers, who will be registered and can be penalized for any violations. It will be deducted from insurance that was paid in advance,” he told the Kuwait Times.

There are Municipality inspection teams controlling the desert to remove any remaining camps at the end of the season. “The remaining camps including the tents, furniture and other things are removed by the inspection team and confiscated. It is not possible to identify a tent, as there is nothing official such as a chassis number on the vehicle. We remove about 50 or 60 tents daily, so it is difficult to prove ownership. The tents and equipment will either be sold in an auction or are burned,” he said.

“We mostly care about the waste left behind, which is damaging nature. The Municipality is cleaning the site after these careless campers, although it’s not our job to do so. We need to enforce the law and penalize the violators,” concluded Al-Hazim.

Fahad Al-Otaibi, Head of Ahmadi Governorate of the Municipality, stressed that the process of removing all remaining camps and tents is still ongoing as the area of the governorate is huge. “On April 1 we started our inspections and gave warnings to the campers that if they did not remove their camps the Municipality will remove it the next day. In fact most people are cooperating with  us and remove their camps. Those who did not, we confiscated the items in the camp and discarded most of it as scrap,” he stated.

He also said the Municipality in Ahmadi Governorate is working on removing trucks that are blocking roads and are parked or left on state property, especially at Abdulla Port.

By Nawara Fattahova, Staff Writer

LWDLIK - I can not even tell you how upset I get at seeing people littering in this country especially Kuwaitis. Why? It's easy enough to pick up after yourself, or even if you're too lazy to do it I'm sure you have an employee that you can ask to do it for you, if you are so inclined. There is just no excuse.

I saw a kid yesterday outside TSC, Salmiya she threw her ice lolly wrapper on the floor just two steps away from the bin. I reminded her very sweetly that the bin is just here. Her mother came out at that time and heard me and said the same to her, she even thanked me. :OD