Jaafer Saadat and a group of his close friends took matters into their own hands earlier this month and hosted a recycling awareness day at Mushrif Mall

Jaafer had come up with a game called Choose the Right Bin. In this game he had photographs of the two types of bins given by CWM (the Center of Waste Management) the green one for recycling and the black one for rubbish. He also had pictures of recyclables and of rubbish.

Jaafer and his friends asked the kids to choose which bin was which? If they guessed correctly, they could choose a small gift.

We caught up with Jaafer to find out what inspired him to host this fun-filled environmental event.

“It all started when my dad got a job at Masdar Institute and we moved from California to Abu Dhabi. We are passionate recyclers. We even picked up horse droppings from Stanford University stables to make our own compost. When we came here we did not find any recycling facilities, so we used to drop off our recycling at Masdar.

“A few months back I saw green recycling bins all over Abu Dhabi. I was so excited, but I soon noticed that people were throwing garbage in the green bin. They did not understand that green means recycling.

“At my school, AISA, 5th graders have to do a group project for the IB programme. We have to research a topic, then plan and execute an action plan. I chose raising awareness about recycling.

“It was  huge success! So many people came, played our recycling game and talked to us. I would like to do this again!”