We all Win Without Litter

Litter on the Road, Al-Rabia, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Today on my 15-minute ride to work, I tried to count the pieces of trash I saw. I quickly got to 50. However, I decided the task was impossible as there were mounds of trash as I moved farther north toward the outskirts of Riyadh. This made me wonder how others feel about this. Is this acceptable to you?

As I see it, this is completely unacceptable. I want the trash gone, and I can only believe you want the trash gone too. For this to happen, we need to find solutions we can all be happy with - Win-Win solutions as Covey (2020) called them. He talked about this Win-Win ideology as creating a situation in which “all parties feel good about the decision and feel committed to the action plan” (Covey, 2020, p. 238). This seems easy enough as none of us want the litter around.

Riyadh Season Venue, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Photo supplied for Al-Khudair, 2019)

During the 2019 Riyadh Season, fines for littering were imposed, “ranging from SR500 ($133) to SR1,000, on people found to be littering” (Al-Khudair, 2019, para. 2) after litter clogged a fountain at a venue (Al-Khudair, 2019, para. 1). The Riyadh Season attractions were new events to the Kingdom and were widely popular. The organizers saw a need to keep the venues clean, and fines have been proven to work in other areas in which change was required. For instance, after the enforcement of traffic violations, the rules of the roads were obeyed more often. In line with this, the enforced littering fines did help keep the venues cleaner. However, after the events were over, this enforcement needed to be continued.

I am trying to research how people really do feel about the litter problem in Saudi Arabia. This is where I need your help. I am asking as many people as possible to take 2-3 minutes of their time to complete a short (7 question) survey (Linked here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/F739XH6) in order to gauge your feelings about this problem and possible involvement in creating solutions. After you take the survey, please forward it to your friends and ask them to do the same. Your input will go a long way in helping find Win-Win solutions to this problem.

References

Al-Khudair, D. (2019, October 22). Riyadh Season: SR500 Fine for Littering

          During Festival, Organizers Say. Arab News.   

          https://www.arabnews.com/node/1572416/saudi-arabia

Covey, S. R. (2020). The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: 30th Anniversary

          Edition [Kindle]. East Roseville: Simon & amp; Schuster Australia.

Media Sources

Al-Khudair, D. (2019, October 22). Riyadh Season: SR500 Fine for Littering

          During Festival, Organizers Say. Arab News.   

          https://www.arabnews.com/node/1572416/saudi-arabia

[The photo of litter on the road] was created by the author of this blog post.