The US ambassador to Kuwait joined volunteers to pick up rubbish on two beaches, as the Gulf nation marked World Cleanup Day on Saturday.
Ambassador Alina Romanowski shared photos of the events on social media.
“Important for coastal countries like ours to keep their beaches clean!” she wrote on Twitter.
Environmental grass roots NGO TrashTag Kuwait, which began as a small group on social media platform Reddit, organised one of the events on Shumaymah Beach.
"The American ambassador being there is very important," Carina Maceira, Director and Co-Founder of TrashTag Kuwait told The National.
"Having a relationship with ambassadors shows that there are people in Kuwait and organisations working towards sustainability and that's such an important message to send out globally when you come from a country that's ultimately oil-centric."
TrashTag regularly conducts beach clean-ups and says volunteers have picked up more than 3,200 bags of rubbish since its first campaign in 2019.
"On Saturday, we collected 161 bags of trash from Shumaymah Beach and we had more than 250 attendees," Ms Maceira said.
The group grew after a post on social media platform Reddit gained popularity, resulting in TrashTag's first clean-up on Sulaibikhat Beach on April 25, 2019.
“After receiving so much support from the community, volunteers decided to do another clean-up the following weekend, only this time twice the amount of volunteers attended and #TrashtagKuwait started to trend," TrashTag says on its website.
Since then, TrashTag Kuwait has grown and launched several other campaigns and projects to raise awareness about the environmental issues facing the country.
One of its initiatives, Project My Mai - which means “water” in Arabic - helps install water filters for communities inside the country that have no access to drinkable tap water.
“Struggling migrant communities still bearing the brunt of the pandemic struggle having access to the safety of our tap water due to old pipes or the infrequent cleaning of water tanks. This is why a filter is a necessity for any home,” TrashTag wrote on Instagram.
Until recently, Kuwait was home to the world's largest tyre dump in Al Rahiya - with more than 20 million rubber tyres. Residents in nearby areas complained of plumes of smoke from tyre incineration.
In August, Kuwait's Environment Public Authority transported all the tyres from Al Rahiya to another location for recycling and export.
Authorities said Al Rahiya would be transformed into a residential area.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
RESULT
Arsenal 1 Chelsea 2
Arsenal: Aubameyang (13')
Chelsea: Jorginho (83'), Abraham (87')
From Zero
Artist: Linkin Park
Label: Warner Records
Number of tracks: 11
Rating: 4/5
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
Director: Scott Cooper
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Odessa Young, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 4/5
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
The more serious side of specialty coffee
While the taste of beans and freshness of roast is paramount to the specialty coffee scene, so is sustainability and workers’ rights.
The bulk of genuine specialty coffee companies aim to improve on these elements in every stage of production via direct relationships with farmers. For instance, Mokha 1450 on Al Wasl Road strives to work predominantly with women-owned and -operated coffee organisations, including female farmers in the Sabree mountains of Yemen.
Because, as the boutique’s owner, Garfield Kerr, points out: “women represent over 90 per cent of the coffee value chain, but are woefully underrepresented in less than 10 per cent of ownership and management throughout the global coffee industry.”
One of the UAE’s largest suppliers of green (meaning not-yet-roasted) beans, Raw Coffee, is a founding member of the Partnership of Gender Equity, which aims to empower female coffee farmers and harvesters.
Also, globally, many companies have found the perfect way to recycle old coffee grounds: they create the perfect fertile soil in which to grow mushrooms.
Company%20profile
%3Cp%3EName%3A%20Cashew%0D%3Cbr%3EStarted%3A%202020%0D%3Cbr%3EFounders%3A%20Ibtissam%20Ouassif%20and%20Ammar%20Afif%0D%3Cbr%3EBased%3A%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3EIndustry%3A%20FinTech%0D%3Cbr%3EFunding%20size%3A%20%2410m%0D%3Cbr%3EInvestors%3A%20Mashreq%2C%20others%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
More from Aya Iskandarani
PSL FINAL
Multan Sultans v Peshawar Zalmi
8pm, Thursday
Zayed Cricket Stadium, Abu Dhabi
MATCH INFO
New Zealand 176-8 (20 ovs)
England 155 (19.5 ovs)
New Zealand win by 21 runs
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
The%C2%A0specs%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E4.4-litre%2C%20twin-turbo%20V8%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Eeight-speed%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E617hp%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E750Nm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Efrom%20Dh630%2C000%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3Enow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
Tamkeen's offering
- Option 1: 70% in year 1, 50% in year 2, 30% in year 3
- Option 2: 50% across three years
- Option 3: 30% across five years
Astroworld
Travis Scott
Grand Hustle/Epic/Cactus Jack
What is hepatitis?
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, which can lead to fibrosis (scarring), cirrhosis or liver cancer.
There are 5 main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E.
Hepatitis C is mostly transmitted through exposure to infective blood. This can occur through blood transfusions, contaminated injections during medical procedures, and through injecting drugs. Sexual transmission is also possible, but is much less common.
People infected with hepatitis C experience few or no symptoms, meaning they can live with the virus for years without being diagnosed. This delay in treatment can increase the risk of significant liver damage.
There are an estimated 170 million carriers of Hepatitis C around the world.
The virus causes approximately 399,000 fatalities each year worldwide, according to WHO.
