20% annual growth in domestic waste

Dubai: The mounting levels of domestic waste produced in Dubai are sounding alarm bells for officials, said the director general of Dubai Municipality at the opening of the Middle East Waste Summit.

Dubai is keen to develop sustainable management of waste which affects cities of developing countries around the world, he said.

Hussain Lootah highlighted that in 2000, up to 3,000 tonnes of waste was heading straight to landfills daily, and by 2008 this had grown to 11,000 tonnes every day making the yearly growth rate of waste 20 per cent.

Construction waste grew by 30 percent in the same period to 60,000 tonnes daily, he said.

Through strategic partnerships between Dubai Municipality and the private sector, many initiatives have been implemented with the aim to improve the state of the environment.

Awareness continues to play a huge role in trying to reduce the amount of waste produced, Lootah said yesterday at the summit in Dubai Airport Expo.

However joint cooperation is needed between service providers and residents. Campaigns on how to deal with the environment are taken part in frequently, he said.

"People have to work with us, we need more cooperation," he said.

During the summit a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Dubai Municipality and Imdaad, a Dubai World company that offers outsourced management services in facilities management and consultancy.

A Dh24 million medical waste treatment plant will open next month in Jebel Ali, said Lootah, and other plants already opened to cope with such increasing levels of various waste include a domestic oil waste plant, and a construction waste recycling plant.

Rising consumption among residents pushed domestic solid waste levels to increase by 10 to 12 percent last year however this is expected to decrease in the coming months as officials expect resident numbers to drop.

Hassan Makki, director of waste management department at Dubai Municipality said 9,000 tonnes of domestic waste is produced daily in Dubai.

Targets aim to recycle between 70 and 80 per cent of the waste and materials.

Speaking at the Bureau of International Recycling conference ongoing simultaneously, Dr Rashid Bin Fahad, minister of environment and water highlighted that frameworks of a national policy are underway to minimize waste through a number of campaigns - notably to rid the UAE of plastic bags and setting up a national centre for a cleaner production.

Recycling: Capacity to increase

Tadweer, a Dubai recycling plant that sorts waste into 11 categories and treats non recyclable materials like organic waste, is currently operating with five lines and sorting 2,500 tonnes of waste daily which will increase to 4,000 tonnes by the end of the year.

Lina Chaban, head of Envirocare at Tadweer said two more lines will be operational very soon to start recycling plastic bags and plastic wrap into pellets, or Refuse Derived Fuel. Both lines will have a capacity of 25,000 tonnes daily.

Will this encourage people to start recycling? Should such initiatives be supported by more awareness campaings?

The initiative should start from home. However, I believe parents need more training then children in this part of the world. Secondly, all the beaches should have recyling bins. I have seen so much rubbish left during the weekends and only one person trying to fill the black bags. There are several ways to educate both children and adults and all the educational institutes and all the industries will rerquire training on RE-CYCLING.I will be more than happy to start this long awaited campaign.
Priti Vyas
Dubai,UAE
Posted: May 27, 2009, 11:43