Saudi cleaner renamed 'friend of environment'

A Saudi city has decided to cancel the name of a dust man and replace it with “friend of environment” within a plan to raise environmental awareness and ensure respect for such workers, newspapers reported on Wednesday.

The central town of Unaizah said it would soon hold a function to honour nearly 800 municipal cleaners and to officially announce the change of the name of their jobs.

“Unaizah municipality said it has decided to change the name of the job of those workers from dust men to friends of the environment,” Sharq daily said.

“It said the decision is intended to raise public awareness of environmental protection, give more respect to those workers and ensure there will be no discrimination among people no matter what their jobs, colour or nationalities are.”