Tips for tipping the eco-hell balance

How to be green and save the world in the Middle East's least ecologically sound city

Recycle
It’s perhaps only George W. Bush and UAE residents that still think the earth can hack the onslaught of human expansion. According to a recent WWF study, the UAE leaves the world’s largest ecological footprint. The consistency of our rubbish makes for uneasy reading as well – over 50 per cent of the UAE’s household waste is made up of organic matter, including food and garden wastes, 22 per cent is paper waste and the rest consists of glass, metal and plastic - the majority of which is easily recyclable. Remember, polystyrene garbage only dissolves after 500 years while glass takes a massive 5,000 years to degrade. There’s some hope, however. Plastic bags, bottles, cardboard, books, magazines and aluminium cans can all be recycled at a point outside the Khalidiya branch of Spinneys (02 681 2897). A full list of public and private recycling depots can be found at www.eeguae.com. But if you fancy getting stuck in at home, visit www.paalgroup.com and purchase your own recycling equipment.

Save water
With Abu Dhabi located smack bang in the middle of one of the most arid zones on earth, it should come as no surprise that water, and not oil, is the city’s most precious commodity. We still over-use and abuse it, with the average person glugging up 60 litres of water a day. So re-use waste water on your plants, don’t take a bath if you don’t need one – showers use much less water – use your dishwasher or washing machine on the lowest setting and don’t leave the tap running when brushing your teeth. You might also want to put a brick in your cistern, thus cutting the amount of water you use for each flush of the toilet. By using less water you’re putting less strain on the energy-sapping desalination plants that provide Abu Dhabi with its tap water. And if that doesn’t sway you, your ADEWA bill will be lower to boot.

Have a transport rethink
It’s the one thing that unifies urbanites in the UAE in complaint – traffic. Fortunately, our fate is in our own hands, and legs. Instead of taking your impossibly huge, gas guzzling SUV into work on your own, offer a workmate a lift. You never know, a beautiful friendship could grow. At the very least it’s one less car polluting the atmosphere and being raged against in jams. If you live near enough to work, why not cycle in? The weather for eight months a year is perfect, there are no pesky hills and you’ll get an entirely different perspective on Abu Dhabi. Sun and Sand sports (02 3674 6299) on Hamdan St offers a large range of bikes from Dhs595.

Clean the eco-system
We might live in a desert, but did you know that there are over 42,000 hectares of reclaimed forest land in the UAE and that, since 1956, some 51 natural reserves have been set up, helping to encourage the nation’s surprisingly diverse wildlife? One way to help preserve this habitat is to join the Emirates Environmental Group. They recently held their fourth annual ‘Clean up the UAE’ day and regularly hold volunteer events. Visit www.eeguae.com or phone 04 331 8100 for more information. The Dubai branch of the WWF is also always looking for new volunteers to help out with their long-term projects. They’re currently helping to sustain Abu Dhabi’s coral reefs and are looking to extend their brief in 2006. Their website is www.panda.org/uae or you can contact Lisa Perry on 04 353 7761.

Donate money
The most obvious way to help a charity of your choice is to donate some of your wages on a regular basis. Muslims are instructed to give Zakaat, or alms, as it’s one of the five pillars of Islam. Zakaat is obligatory and is paid monthly, with special consideration given during Ramadan. There are a complicated set of rules governing what part of an individual’s wealth is eligible to have Zakaat paid against it. To ensure that the poor are not unfairly burdened, there is a threshold, nisaab, below which you don’t have to pay. Typically, 2.5per cent is levied upon an individual’s wealth above the nisaab, which currently stands at $1,300, the same as three ounces of gold. For non-Muslims, or Muslims who want to give extra charitable donations – known as sadaqah - there are a whole host of local and international charities you can donate to. You can make donations to the Red Crescent via its website (www.ifrc.org) or by bank transfer (UBS SA, Case postale 2600, 1211 Geneva Switzerland, Account number 240- c0128346.4 IBAN CH47 0024 0240 C012 8346 4). Oxfam are making a big push to raise funds for the survivors of the South East Asian earthquake and can also take donations on their website, www.oxfam.org. The charity has also come up with a novel way of getting people to donate instead of buying expensive gifts for their friends. At www.oxfamunwrapped.com you can buy individual birthday, celebration and wedding gifts that give practical help to the Third World, like a camel for Somali villagers (Dhs615), training for a Salvadorian farmer (Dhs415) or a year’s worth of irrigation for a plot of land in Ethiopia (Dhs650). You can donate to dozens of local charities, ranging from animal welfare to cancer research organisations, listings for which can be found in Time Out’s Charity section. Alternatively, Mobile Aid (04 390 3950 - www.mobile-aid.org) lends its technology to local charities so that they can accept micro donations via text message. To donate Dhs10 to their chosen charities send a blank text to 4321.

Adopt a pet
As equations go, this one’s pretty simple. You contact either Feline Friends (050 451 0058) or K9 Friends (04 347 4611). They give you a healthy but abandoned kitten or puppy in return for a small donation. You save the life of a destitute, unprotected and unloved animal. And you get unlimited joy every time you stroke/feed/walk said animal. What’s more, both charities help cover the cost of vaccinations. Invest in animal passports and you can also take your new pet with you wherever you go. Simple.

Get active
So you’ve sold your car and bought a bike, donated a healthy chunk of your cash to good causes and given up your Saturday mornings to clean up after a litter of orphaned kittens. But, like watching a Rosemary Conley workout video, you don’t really experience the benefit until you feel the burn. Which is where Gulf For Good (04 368 0222 / www.gulf4good.org) comes in. They organise frequent activity adventures to far-flung lands, like trekking in Peru or hiking in Oman, where you physically push yourself to the limit whilst raising cash for local charities. They run a system whereby each participant goes for free but fulfils their obligations by raising a minimum amount of sponsorship from friends and family instead. This year they’ll be running hiking trips to the Great Wall of China, Mount Kilimanjaro and Mongolia. Start getting into shape now.

Adopt a wild animal
If you want to make an investment in the preservation of the world’s wildlife, make for www.animalsponsor.co.uk, a programme run by the WWF. It enables you to adopt one of six animals living in WWF project areas outside of zoos. Starting from Dhs16 per month you can help to support a giant panda, a Bengal tiger (one of only 123 left in Nepal), a Malaysian orangutan, bottlenose dolphin, Asian elephant or black rhino. Your cash will go into projects which are safeguarding the animals’ futures and protecting them from harm. When you sign up, you’ll get a pack of introductory material including a print of your adopted animal, facts about the species and regular updates about the progress of your animal. You can, of course, go and visit ‘your’ animal and brag to friends that you have your very own tiger. If you’re looking for imaginative gift ideas for a friend or relation, the animal adoption packs make great and deeply worthwhile presents.

Sponsor children abroad
Log on to www.worldvision.org and you can make a huge difference to a disadvantaged child in one of the globe’s poorest nations. From Dhs100 a month, you can sponsor a child, providing clean water, food, health care and educational opportunities. You will be sent a photo and contact details of your child so you can get in touch with them. World Vision are particularly active in communities being torn apart by the HIV/AIDS pandemic; if you choose to sponsor a ‘Hope Child’ in one of these areas your money will go towards keeping them safe from HIV/AIDS and providing care for sick or dying parents and counselling for the child. With an estimated 6,000 children left orphaned by the disease every day, the need for international support has never been greater.

Donate blood
Every time you give blood you save someone’s life. It really is that simple. And in Abu Dhabi the need for donors is acute. Aside from the routine requirements for surgery and accidents which requires regular transfusions there is also a prevelance of thessalamia in the population which means there are drastic shortages of blood in the city. Becoming a donor is a simple and safe procedure. The law requires that you should be between the ages of 18 and 60, possess a resident’s visa, and be free of any chronic diseases such as diabetes or hypertension and not suffering from any infections or flu symptons. If you qualify there are several places to go. The Abu Dhabi Blood Bank (02 644 9333) is currently running a campaign to encourage donors to come and give blood. The department encourages the public to donate blood under a strict supervisory system which subjects all blood units to testing to ensure their clearance of infectious diseases such as HIV/ AIDS, viral hepatitis B & C, syphilis and malaria. Go along with some ID and they will take a pint of your finest claret. If you become a regular giver (the minimum wait between donations is two and a half months) they will pay you Dhs200 after the third trip for donation.


By Michelle Madsen, March 2006 (Time Out)