Dubai: Street cleaners in Dubai now have a new way to beat the summer heat, with a cool gear unveiled recently.
The Waste Management Department of the Dubai Municipality recently distributed “cooling collars” to its cleaners to protect them from summer heat and humidity, when noontime temperatures hover around the high 40s.
On Tuesday, the highest temperature recorded stood at 48.5 °C at 1.30pm in Mezaira area.
“The cleaners were distributed a total of 4,000 cooling collars, which is a closed material similar to cold compresses placed on the worker’s jacket that cools the areas exposed to heat such as the neck, chest and upper neck,” the municipality said in a press release on Wednesday.
The cooling collars cover the neck area, providing recovery from heat and reduce body temperature at such times.
It works efficiently for four to six hours and can be reused by placing it in the fridge until the gels are frozen. Each user’s name has been registered on the ring so as to avoid being used by other people, the department said.
The municipality said the initiative is part of precautionary and protection measures against sun strokes and rising temperatures.
“Protecting the department’s workforce is at the top of our priorities as the nature of work of this category requires working in the open and exerting a lot of efforts in cleaning operations,” said Abdul Majeed Abdul Aziz Al Saifaie, the director of the department.
He said the department took into account these factors and initiated the distribution of this type of cooling material, which can be used around the neck to cool the body and protect the body from high temperature so that the worker is not subject to heat exhaustion due to high temperatures.
Previously, the department had gifted solar-powered cooling caps for street cleaners in a similar initiative in the summer of 2013.
