Omani family spends National Day holidays cleaning up campers' garbage

Muscat: An Omani family of 11 spent three of their National Day holidays cleaning their villages of rubbish left by visitors.
Over the course of three days, the volunteers covered five tourist destinations in Jalan Bani Bu Ali, in South Al Sharqiyah Governorates.
Salim Abu Brika, a volunteer from Wadi Sal said: "During the National Day holidays, a lot of tourists came to our village for camping because of the nice weather. Unfortunately, the tourists left their garbage at the site which caused bad smell, attracted insects and affected our cattle and camels, as well as spoiled the landscape."
Salim added: "So, we decided to trek to the main tourist sites in our wilayat and collect the rubbish from it. We also went to families' camps and asked them to give us the garbage they have."
Another volunteer Haitham Al Oraimi said, "We always welcome visitors to our wilayat, and the locals are keen to clean their area and open spaces from such plastics and rubbish, but we suffered from such bad behavior that some people do. A citizen told me that three of his goats died after they ate the rubbish left by tourists."
Locals have asked the municipal authorities to implement strict punishments to prevent this. Salim said: "What we do is a part of our duty towards our beloved country, and always we ask the municipality to place garbage bins, to place guidelines and apply punishments against people who litter."