Two days ago I wanted to go out for a walk, but as soon as I opened the door, I almost fainted because a very strong and obnoxious odor struck my nose. I slammed the door shut and was denied my walk. I found the smell was from a trash bag left on the stairs by someone, without consideration what such an act may do to the 20 families living in the five-storey building.

Many people blame the government or the municipality for leaving the streets full of rubbish without even thinking about how this rubbish reached the street. It is in our nature to like seeing our cities and streets squeaky clean, but the sad reality is that we do not pay attention to the fact that it is we who keep it clean if we choose, and render it ugly by our own doing. How many of you have seen people throwing rubbish out of their car, which may hit the car behind them? How many of you found fast food trash next to their car by someone who just enjoyed an unhealthy junk meal?

Many times, I have seen garbage bags full of all types of household waste left open and things flying out of it in all directions, with stray cats and dogs foraging for food, keeping in mind that the wind does a good job of spreading things around.

When we blame the authorities, we must first consider our responsibilities. Did we act as we are supposed to act? One major problem we suffer from is that we follow others, consciously or not. We often hear many people say “let him do it first and I will follow suit”! While the fact is that one should take the initiative and encourage others to join us instead of waiting for someone to start, then we go along.

We understand that when flies swarm over something, they will not be selective and will be an annoyance to everybody regardless of who they may be, and this goes for other insects and pests.

I remember some time back when rats invaded some of Kuwait’s neighborhoods in scary proportions, and became so widespread to a point that made the director of Kuwait Television ask people to bring bags of rats to him. He then brought the bags in front of the camera to show how grave the problem was, and it was only with the joint efforts of the government and the public that ended what was really a crisis.

Let us care for each other in all aspects of public life so that we can lead a clean and healthy life.

Final word: “Teamwork - coming together is beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.” – Henry Ford