copdot
3rd October 2005, 09:19 PM
This has been taken from an article in a Qatari newspaper a few months ago. Since we are more or less of the same habits as them I thought it appropriate to post it here. And specifically because Ramadhan, the holy month is just about to start. Please take time to read the full thing.
Good Morning Qatar,
Today, if you are not aware, is the World Environment Day – an apt day for us to open our eyes and think.
To blow our noses, tissue paper. Fair enough. To wipe off our sweat in this scorching heat, tissue paper. That too is understandable. But to wipe off that one tiny dot of dust off our computer screens, or off our steering wheels, or our bedside tables, or for cleaning our hands after a meal… tissue paper! Really?
According to figures, unofficial though, on an average in Doha, each person uses a minimum of 10 sheets of tissue paper every day. So, about 600,000 of us literally toss approximately six million sheets in a day. 180 million in a month! In a year? You do the math.
But you really don’t need any more figures to be assured that that’s a huge amount of paper going waste, when all you need is one handkerchief, or a napkin made out of cloth to get you through days and months. The only thing that it requires is washing. How big a problem is that?
Lets for a minute leave aside the fact that hundreds of trees are chopped off from forests to make this seemingly harmless paper, and that it’s contributing rather significantly towards pollution and global warming.
Just imagine how much paper is going waste, how much money, which can be saved, is going waste in buying these tissue paper boxes, one of which costs anywhere between QR 3 and QR 8.
Ask Mushtaq Khatib, a real estate agent from India, who has been living in Doha for the last 29 years, and he’ll tell you without thinking that between his family of eight they consume "two boxes every single day". That’s 400 sheets between eight people!
"You come to my house and in every room you will find a tissue paper box. There has to be. We can live without water but not without tissue paper," he says.
"In this part of the world we need tissue paper for everything. Be it before dinner, after dinner, to wipe off a drop off water from the table, or to clean our teacup. Don’t ask me why. It was a habit that was thrust upon me ever since I came here," he says.
"Now even when we go back to India, we have no choice but to carry boxes and boxes of tissue paper with us," he adds.
Walk into a restaurant and you are bound to see a box of tissue paper on every table. And how do we use the paper? Instead of probably taking out one, we’ll take out three to blow our noses. We’ll end up using five to wipe off our hands after dinner.
"The minute an Arabic would come in, before asking for water he would ask for tissue paper," remarks Irshad Wadood, Restaurant Manager at the Ramada Hotel.
However, he says, in his hotel’s restaurants they do keep cloth-made napkins as it is a "prestige issue", but in the bars and in the lobby there are tissue paper boxes all over.
"It is for no other reasons but hygiene. You can dispose off the paper napkins after use. Whereas, you’ll be using the cloth-made napkins again and again.
"In the small independent restaurants though," Wadood says, "they use tissue paper because it is obviously cost effective."
The owner of an Indian restaurant in the city’s Najma area lays a bet that he’d keep cloth napkins and tissue paper on one table, and assures the customer will go for the tissue paper. He wins the bet.
How about not keeping the tissue paper and just the cloth napkin there? He does that for the next table, and surprisingly, the customer ignores the cloth napkin completely and asks for tissue paper.
"You can’t change their habit, which has existed for years, in one day," the owner says arrogantly.
Not wishing to be named, a citizen of Malaysia, working in Doha for the last three years, describes the situation as "mind-boggling".
"When I first came here, I went to the hyper market and was shocked to see one whole aisle space given to tissue paper boxes. The space given to milk was not even one third of that!" she exclaims.
"And people here don’t use paper, they waste it," she says.
It is a catch 22 situation. An official at the Lulu Hypermarket says, "We only sell what people want to buy."
South American Maria Pires, a housewife living in Doha for eight years, counters with a shrug, while buying a pile of tissue paper boxes: "It’s what’s supplied. Can’t help it."
What started the tissue culture? If the expatriates influenced the citizens, or vice versa, is a big mystery. The only thing that’s well known is that the tissue culture has been here ever since.
But the question as to why the tissue culture, has answers ranging from "it’s hygienic" to "people of Doha are lazy" to "it’s status symbol".
Says Shakeel Kakui, an active environmentalist from MES Indian School: "Besides the fact that people have become completely dependant on tissue paper, it is true that it’s a sign of showing off their status. That we like to use things and throw them, that we won’t use a handkerchief, which we have to wash over and over again. And of course, some think using the QR 8 worth perfumed tissues takes them one step higher than the ones using the regular paper."
Kakui adds: "The perfumed and the bleached tissues have chlorine in them, which indeed is adding to the pollution contributing towards global warming. But even more harmful are the tissue paper boxes, which are completely non-biodegradable since they’re totally made of chemicals."
For those who aren’t aware of the warning of global warming, the drastic affect of which we may not witness, but there is a chance, if things continue to go as they are, our grandchildren and their children might just be in the middle of…
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 1.1°F (0.6°C). Seven of the 10 warmest years in the 20th century occurred in the 1990s.
Mountain glaciers the world over are receding. The Arctic ice pack has lost about 40 percent of its thickness over the past four decades. Global sea level is rising about three times faster over the past 100 years compared with the previous 3,000 years.
And as Earth continues to warm, there is a growing risk that the climate will change in ways that will seriously disrupt our lives. There will be a faster rise in sea level; more heat waves and droughts, resulting in more and more conflicts over water resources; more extreme weather events producing floods and property destruction; and a greater potential for heat-related illness and deaths.
Till about a couple of decades ago, winter in Qatar would mean sweaters, overcoats, hand gloves and mist out of your mouth while you spoke. But now, you can barely differentiate between summer and winter. The air-conditioners never used to be turned on before May, but now you need them in March.
Qatar has developed really fast - state-of-the-art buildings, great roads, flashy cars – and this is in fact just the beginning. But what’s the point if these mighty constructions are brought down to soil in a matter of years? That too because of a small piece of paper, which we couldn’t get rid of!
Good Morning Qatar,
Today, if you are not aware, is the World Environment Day – an apt day for us to open our eyes and think.
To blow our noses, tissue paper. Fair enough. To wipe off our sweat in this scorching heat, tissue paper. That too is understandable. But to wipe off that one tiny dot of dust off our computer screens, or off our steering wheels, or our bedside tables, or for cleaning our hands after a meal… tissue paper! Really?
According to figures, unofficial though, on an average in Doha, each person uses a minimum of 10 sheets of tissue paper every day. So, about 600,000 of us literally toss approximately six million sheets in a day. 180 million in a month! In a year? You do the math.
But you really don’t need any more figures to be assured that that’s a huge amount of paper going waste, when all you need is one handkerchief, or a napkin made out of cloth to get you through days and months. The only thing that it requires is washing. How big a problem is that?
Lets for a minute leave aside the fact that hundreds of trees are chopped off from forests to make this seemingly harmless paper, and that it’s contributing rather significantly towards pollution and global warming.
Just imagine how much paper is going waste, how much money, which can be saved, is going waste in buying these tissue paper boxes, one of which costs anywhere between QR 3 and QR 8.
Ask Mushtaq Khatib, a real estate agent from India, who has been living in Doha for the last 29 years, and he’ll tell you without thinking that between his family of eight they consume "two boxes every single day". That’s 400 sheets between eight people!
"You come to my house and in every room you will find a tissue paper box. There has to be. We can live without water but not without tissue paper," he says.
"In this part of the world we need tissue paper for everything. Be it before dinner, after dinner, to wipe off a drop off water from the table, or to clean our teacup. Don’t ask me why. It was a habit that was thrust upon me ever since I came here," he says.
"Now even when we go back to India, we have no choice but to carry boxes and boxes of tissue paper with us," he adds.
Walk into a restaurant and you are bound to see a box of tissue paper on every table. And how do we use the paper? Instead of probably taking out one, we’ll take out three to blow our noses. We’ll end up using five to wipe off our hands after dinner.
"The minute an Arabic would come in, before asking for water he would ask for tissue paper," remarks Irshad Wadood, Restaurant Manager at the Ramada Hotel.
However, he says, in his hotel’s restaurants they do keep cloth-made napkins as it is a "prestige issue", but in the bars and in the lobby there are tissue paper boxes all over.
"It is for no other reasons but hygiene. You can dispose off the paper napkins after use. Whereas, you’ll be using the cloth-made napkins again and again.
"In the small independent restaurants though," Wadood says, "they use tissue paper because it is obviously cost effective."
The owner of an Indian restaurant in the city’s Najma area lays a bet that he’d keep cloth napkins and tissue paper on one table, and assures the customer will go for the tissue paper. He wins the bet.
How about not keeping the tissue paper and just the cloth napkin there? He does that for the next table, and surprisingly, the customer ignores the cloth napkin completely and asks for tissue paper.
"You can’t change their habit, which has existed for years, in one day," the owner says arrogantly.
Not wishing to be named, a citizen of Malaysia, working in Doha for the last three years, describes the situation as "mind-boggling".
"When I first came here, I went to the hyper market and was shocked to see one whole aisle space given to tissue paper boxes. The space given to milk was not even one third of that!" she exclaims.
"And people here don’t use paper, they waste it," she says.
It is a catch 22 situation. An official at the Lulu Hypermarket says, "We only sell what people want to buy."
South American Maria Pires, a housewife living in Doha for eight years, counters with a shrug, while buying a pile of tissue paper boxes: "It’s what’s supplied. Can’t help it."
What started the tissue culture? If the expatriates influenced the citizens, or vice versa, is a big mystery. The only thing that’s well known is that the tissue culture has been here ever since.
But the question as to why the tissue culture, has answers ranging from "it’s hygienic" to "people of Doha are lazy" to "it’s status symbol".
Says Shakeel Kakui, an active environmentalist from MES Indian School: "Besides the fact that people have become completely dependant on tissue paper, it is true that it’s a sign of showing off their status. That we like to use things and throw them, that we won’t use a handkerchief, which we have to wash over and over again. And of course, some think using the QR 8 worth perfumed tissues takes them one step higher than the ones using the regular paper."
Kakui adds: "The perfumed and the bleached tissues have chlorine in them, which indeed is adding to the pollution contributing towards global warming. But even more harmful are the tissue paper boxes, which are completely non-biodegradable since they’re totally made of chemicals."
For those who aren’t aware of the warning of global warming, the drastic affect of which we may not witness, but there is a chance, if things continue to go as they are, our grandchildren and their children might just be in the middle of…
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 1.1°F (0.6°C). Seven of the 10 warmest years in the 20th century occurred in the 1990s.
Mountain glaciers the world over are receding. The Arctic ice pack has lost about 40 percent of its thickness over the past four decades. Global sea level is rising about three times faster over the past 100 years compared with the previous 3,000 years.
And as Earth continues to warm, there is a growing risk that the climate will change in ways that will seriously disrupt our lives. There will be a faster rise in sea level; more heat waves and droughts, resulting in more and more conflicts over water resources; more extreme weather events producing floods and property destruction; and a greater potential for heat-related illness and deaths.
Till about a couple of decades ago, winter in Qatar would mean sweaters, overcoats, hand gloves and mist out of your mouth while you spoke. But now, you can barely differentiate between summer and winter. The air-conditioners never used to be turned on before May, but now you need them in March.
Qatar has developed really fast - state-of-the-art buildings, great roads, flashy cars – and this is in fact just the beginning. But what’s the point if these mighty constructions are brought down to soil in a matter of years? That too because of a small piece of paper, which we couldn’t get rid of!