Dubai to fit waste collection vehicles with weight sensors

Twenty-five years after Clean UAE began as a street clean-up drive, the entities behind it say the focus will now also be on stopping people from calling it waste in the first place – a shift backed by new technology already rolling out on the ground.

The Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) officially launched the 25th Cycle of the Clean UAE Campaign today, a Silver Jubilee edition marking 25 years of the largest environmental movement, at a press conference held under the patronage of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) at Al Khoory Sky Garden Hotel in Dubai. MOCCAE and municipalities across the emirates used the conference to describe where the campaign’s attention is now also going. Their answers all pointed in the same direction. Treating waste as a resource, not something to get rid of.

"This is no longer something we get rid of, but something we consume, reduce, recycle and benefit from," said Hiba Obaid Al Shehi of MOCCAE, pointing to circular-economy projects, including ‘Tahweel’, UAE’s first national digital marketplace for recyclable materials, that grade and convert waste into energy and economic value. "Cleaning the UAE isn't only the government's responsibility. It's every single one of us."

By the numbers since the start

Clean UAE began in 1993 in Ras Al Khaimah, before spreading to Ajman, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, and eventually to all seven emirates by 2005. Habiba Al Mar'ashi, EEG's Co-Founder and Chairperson, said the campaign was built on the idea that a national clean-up drive had to be organized, not spontaneous.

Over 25 cycles, EEG says 1,149,005 volunteers have taken part, collecting 1,754,634 kilograms of waste while contributing to cleaning and restoration of 1,288 km2 of land. The campaign has also contributed towards 186,265.02 tons of Co2 emissions. Al Mar'ashi pointed to an EEG-led hospitality alliance as evidence of how far the campaign's influence now reaches beyond street clean-ups, with a few UAE hotels now operating at zero waste.

"The road is still long," Al Mar'ashi said. "Let us together write the chapter of what the next 25 years will be.”

The campaign will commence in Dubai on Saturday, December 5, 2026, before continuing to Sharjah, Fujairah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah and concluding in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, December 15, 2026.

The focus is on technology

Dubai Municipality laid out concrete plans. Eng Mohammad Ahmad Al Rayees said the municipality has moved past the awareness campaign and wants to invest specifically in collection and sorting technology, and is studying new solid-waste tech. ”We want to focus on opportunities and technologies.”, he said.

Behind that push is data. “It’s important for us to focus on having more data, one city’s experience might help another,” Al Rayees said. "Without seeing the numbers, without commercial visibility, it's hard to make decisions." That's the reasoning behind the municipality's new Clean City Index app, which obliges every operator to log waste through a manifest system. The same logic sits behind a coming rollout of weight sensors across Dubai's waste collection fleet, he said, which will track exactly what's being collected, and where, across the city. Dubai has also launched Circle Dubai, a platform that seeks to recruit 1,500 ambassadors to push the municipality’s waste strategy.

Abu Dhabi’s representative, Hamed Al Darei said the answer lies in the private sector. "The private sector has the technology, investment and ideas that can change this,", adding that education has already driven real change in behavior, and that future projects need to be built on that same principle of shared benefit.

Attending at the conference were, Hamed Al Darei, director of Al Wathba from Abu Dhabi Municipality, Mohammad Ahmad Al Rayees, director for Waste Strategy and Project Department in Dubai Municipality, Mona Abdul Karim Al Yafei from Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services, Ali Kasim from Fujairah Natural Resources Corporation, Hiba Obaid Al Shehi from MOCCAE and Mona Al Daheri from Government of Ajman Municipality & Planning Department.