For the past years, and especially since our first kid was born, we’ve been working hard to avoid overconsumption and make more eco-friendly swaps in our everyday life, and even save money along the way. However, since our arrival in Riyadh, I feel like we are producing more waste in a week than back in London over the course of a month, and I’m struggling to find ways to effectively cut back.
Our family is still in our temporary accommodation in the DQ, and most of our belongings are still in transit. There are recycling bins for plastic, metal and cardboard/paper. However, from what I heard and read on the topic, the waste management system across the city runs on limited capacity and struggles to keep up with the rapid population growth. Consequently, most of the rubbish ends up in landfill to be burned, only a small fraction of the waste actually gets recycled. We received similar responses from the compounds we visited. There are efforts to recycle as much household waste as possible, the infrastructure is still limited to do so. The government is allocating a lot of resources to improve the systems across the country, and set out ambitious targets as part of the Saudi Green Initiative, but until these are reached, we are trying to reduce our output as much as possible.
A number of factors make this more challenging at the moment, which is quite frustrating. I outlined a few of these below, so grab a tea!
Lack of Pedestrianised Zones and Public Transport
I won’t go into too much detail today about this, but so far it's been my least favourite thing about this otherwise wonderful city. With the exception of the DQ, it’s the least pedestrian-friendly place I have ever visited. It’s understandable, of course. On one hand, the climate isn’t suitable for being outdoors for long periods during the day for a large part of the year. On the other, a lot of areas in Riyadh still greatly resemble a construction site with cars in mind, so there isn’t an established, readily available, customer-friendly public transport system as of yet either. This is bound to change though, to my great delight and excitement. A grandiose metro project is underway, and the first stations are expected to open to passengers next year. The King Abdullah Financial District (KAFD) Metro Station was designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, how cool is that?! I can't wait to try it!
There’s no point in writing in great length about the lack of electric or hybrid cars either. It’s the Gulf after all, petrol is ridiculously cheap in comparison to the rapidly increasing prices in the UK and Europe. Think around £0.6/L. Husband currently drives a stylish and spacious rental SUV, that is allegedly very fuel efficient, but it does produce well over 100g/km CO2 emissions. Since it’s not really possible to leave the house without a car, there’s not much we can do about this besides really only go somewhere when necessary. Fortunately, in the DQ there are somewhat pedestrianised areas and we can use the sidewalks to safely get to the small shop around the corner.
Tap Water versus Bottled Water
Drinking water is a concern I was fortunate enough never having to pay attention to previously. In theory, tap water is safe to drink across the country, but I must admit it is an acquired taste we have yet to get accustomed to.
Fortunately, there are advanced water filtration systems installed in our present and future accommodation. In addition to this, our beloved Brita filter is on the way from London, with 6 months worth of refill cartridges. Together they should resolve the taste-problem. In the meantime, we have a water cooler, which is apparently commonplace in every household here, so we try to minimise the number of plastic bottles by getting 5-gallon refills instead, and use the tap water for cooking. One jug lasts for about 4-6 days. We also use this to fill up our insulated water bottles, so we don’t need to buy individual bottles of water when out and about. Although I do treat myself to the occasional soft drink or sparkling water.
Plastic Is Everywhere, Here's What We Do to Avoid It
It dawned on me the other day that we are surrounded by plastic everywhere we look. It’s present in all shapes and forms from the aforementioned bottled water and drinking straws to cling film and polystyrene cups, and most of it is not being recycled.
After visiting branches of the most popular hypermarkets, such as Lulu, Danube and Panda, as well as a number of smaller stores like Tamimi, I am yet to find one that makes a visible effort towards sustainability. Such as incentivising people to bring their own reusable bags, or limit the number of plastic bags used by going as far as charging a small fee for them. Alternatively, or in addition to the above, rethink their packaging practices and introducing compostable/more sustainable alternatives. After less than two weeks we’ve inevitably amassed a handful of plastic shopping bags, mainly from our first shop when a bagger, whose job is to pack your shopping for you, placed pretty much each individual item in separate bags. Instead of throwing them away, I grab a couple when going to the store, along with my favourite Fortnum’s bag for life that I somehow managed to squeeze into one of our suitcases. We also use these in the nappy bin, since we are on a cloth nappy hiatus while we wait for our belongings to arrive.
Cling film and polystyrene are tricky to avoid around here, despite being banned in several countries due to their harmful effect on the environment and humans. It appears that most fresh produce like cheese, olives and fish will end up being packaged this way. What worries me most is the amount of microplastics we end up ingesting via our food. At home, we normally use beeswax wraps instead of cling film. These proved to be a great alternative.
To sum it up, it feels like an uphill battle to try to keep up with our previous efforts in living in a more ecologically conscious, sustainable way, but we will continue to thrive for an ultimately zero-waste lifestyle. The federal government has set ambitious targets to reduce the country's environmental impact and implement more sustainable practices across a wide range of its industries, and I’m excited to see the changes in the coming years and be a part of this journey towards a greener Saudi Arabia. We all have a long way to go, but all it takes is one step at a time in the right direction!
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