Litter

This is what I saw when I came back to Kuwait after the Eid holidays. How hard is it to crumple up an ATM receipt and throw it into the bin ? I was joking with a friend of mine that maybe this is what Kuwait would look like if all the cleaners disappeared one day.

This reminded me of an incident in January 2006, I had to travel to New Delhi on personal business when the airport workers union staged a sudden strike and stopped maintenance of all the major airports in the country. There were newspapers and magazines strewn all over the lounge, paper cups and spilled coffee on the floor and leftover sandwiches piling up in the garbage cans. It was then that I noticed a few fellow travelers picking up the newspapers and arranging them on the seats next to them. Pretty soon most of the people in the airport were picking up stray pieces of paper and litter and dumping them in the trash cans nearby. It was a funny sight to see some guys in business suits picking up and stacking magazines and papers neatly. My flight was announced shortly and I picked up my bags and left with a smile on my face thinking about the people who put down their laptops and picked up litter that day in the airport. :)