Environmental issue:Nationwide awareness campaign needed [Archives:2003/659/Health]

Ismail Al-Ghabiri
Since the creation of man and he has been affecting the earth he is living on in various ways, mostly, unfortunately, negatively. This is because when man is dealing with the environment does not keep in mind that it is not only his world; rather it is a place where many other creatures live in and more so it is the place where the future generations also would be living in.
Yemen is one of those countries which is gifted with beautiful landscape and fantastic weather, yet in return it is a land where most of the people occupying it are ignorant and uneducated especially when it comes to protection of environment or environmental awareness in general. This is obvious from the way people throw away garbage on to streets in spite of the fact that there are garbage cans all around and garbagemen cleaning the streets by day and by night. Not only everyday waste is thrown to the streets such as plastic bags and tin cans and the rest, but recently a new disastrous kind of waste has been taking a prominent place near the maintenance and machines repairing shops; where large lumps of clothes soaked in oil or various kinds of lubrication are found. These are quite harmful to the environment and they could be a source of many diseases especially that they are accessible to children and lunatics strolling about in the streets. It is not enough that personal hygiene is a missing point in many homes especially those who are illiterate and poor but now there are ways to play with messy stuff in the streets thanks to careless people.
Another dangerous threat to environment is the chemicals used in farms and biochemical fertilizes. When farmers use various kinds of chemicals to make their fruit ripen earlier they just think of the near future when they would benefit from the selling of those goods before time. What they don't realize is that not only is this harmful to the environment because of the chemicals they keep spraying in the air, also this could prove fatal for some people who have those fruit for example without washing.
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