Dubai: Over 3,850 abandoned cars have been seized from Dubai streets since 2016, Dubai Municipality said on Tuesday.
Last year alone, 3,230 cars were confiscated. The Waste Management Department removed another 625 cars since the beginning of this year.
The confiscated cars are held at a special unit of the municipality in Al Ghusais.
Some parked cars are deemed a safety risk or obstruction to civic work, with officials routinely rounding up several cars every month.
Motorists, including those on holiday, sometimes leave behind dirty cars in public areas for extended periods of time.
Others abandon their cars altogether, while some vehicles block the way of cleaning or safety crews. These cars are confiscated by municipal officers after repeated warnings.
Officials also announced that Dubai has cut down more than 50 per cent of waste generation per day in the emirate through various strategic programmes in the past four years.
“The strategic plan to deal with waste included three stages. In the the first phase, in which the Municipality succeeded in reducing the volume of waste,” Hussain Nasser Lootah, director-general of Dubai Municipality said in a press release.
“For four years it was 11,500 tonnes per day, but, today it has become 5,532 tons per day,” Lootah pointed out.
Last year, the department cleaned 58,887km of waste. During the first three months of this year, waste workers collected 328,031 tonnes of waste from all sites and areas, covered by the waste collection and disposal services provided by the Department.
He explained that the municipality succeeded in cleaning 17,885km since the beginning of the year.
Abdul Majeed Abdul Aziz Al Saifaie said that the instructions of the director-general were in line with the environmental objectives of the national agenda for the year 2021 for the transfer of 75 per cent of the waste produced in Dubai to the landfill.
Lootah said that the municipality is currently studying some offers to generate energy from organic waste, as well as the production of compost from these wastes as organic waste constitute 30 per cent of the volume of waste in the emirate.
“We have completed the preparation of a comprehensive plan to deal with waste. We are looking at it from two main angles, the first is to minimize waste and the second is to reuse it. We believe that waste is a real treasure and not just waste. Waste should be recycled, especially organic waste, which amounts to about 30 per cent of the total waste in the emirate. We also have to transfer waste to energy so that ultimately there is no more than 2 per cent of them that can be safely buried so that 98 per cent of the land in landfill could be saved,” said Lootah.
“We hope, according to the UAE National Plan, by 2020, we will be able to recycle 75 per cent of the volume of waste and by 2030 we will reach a position that there is zero waste in landfills,” he said.
There are 11 landfill sites in Dubai, the oldest of which is Al Ghusais Landfill, which was established in 1976.
“It still absorbs the waste. The capacity of these landfills is different and its area is about 10.011 million square meters. Hygienic dumping is currently being carried out in 6 landfills, and they are at Al Ghusais, Jebel Ali, Al Bayadiyah, Al Habab, Hatta, and Al-Warsan. The waste is burned in one of the landfills. Special treatment is carried out in one of the landfills while recycling is carried out in three landfills,” Lootah said.
Dubai Municipality has also inaugurated nine centers for collection of materials under the Smart Sustainability Oasis project in many strategic areas in the Emirate of Dubai such as Al Manara Centre of Dubai Municipality, Al Twar Centre, Hatta Centre, Al Rashidiya Park, Quran Park at Al Khawaneej, Umm Suqeim Park, Al Karama Park, Mirdif Park, and Al Barsha Pond Park. Four more centers will be developed soon in Nadd Al Hamr Park, Al Nahda Pond Park, Al Muhaisnah-1 Park and Satwa Park.
The Smart Sustainability Oasis Centres have been dedicated to receiving various types of electronic waste and consumer electrical equipment, mobile phones, dry batteries, light bulbs and others. Blue containers have been provided in cooperation with Averda Environmental Services.
