Dubai?s beaches are a magnet for tourists and residents alike. However, the visitors quite often leave behind lots of litter, which include copious numbers of cigarette stubs. These take years to degrade and the toxins from these stubs percolate into the soil, degrading it to a large extent.

At the same time, the litter that we leave on our beaches finds its way into the oceans causing irreparable harm to its biodiversity. As civil society we need to join hands and work together to reduce litter on our shorelines and also to stop polluting these water bodies through other means.

With this objective , we at Green Hope UAE,  alongwith students of JSS School ,  conducted a beach cleanup on Jumeirah beach under the guidance of Dubai Municipality, last month. Under the blazing summer sun, our members clad in their distinctive green T shirts fanned out across this iconic beach with collection bags in their hands and scoured the sand for litter . The amount of litter , which varied from cigarette butts to bottles , cans , toys , broken skateboards , metal scraps , that we collected was indeed an eyeopener .

Despite the heat , we were happy to have contributed to cleaning up the beach which draws millions of tourists from across the globe. We were also greatly honoured to receive a certificate of appreciation from Dubai Municipality and we thank them effusively for giving us the opportunity of working with them.