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Special Feature
The Business of Waste BGreen investigates how companies in the UAE are stepping up to the challenge of responsibly managing waste. With a focus on the medical and hospitality industries, Marwan Noueihed looks at the methods used by Averda, Rotana and Dubai’s Welcare Hospital
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s a trading hub hosting some of the region’s largest infrastructure projects and the regional headquarters of many multinational companies, the urgency of responsible waste management is pronounced in the UAE. The good news is that managing waste is becoming a financial and environmental challenge that governments, and more importantly companies, in the UAE are increasingly choosing to face. A study conducted by the Abu Dhabi-based Center for Waste Management (CWM) in April said that the emirate generates more than 10 million tonnes of waste per year. Statistics show that in 2010 Dubai generated approximately 13.9 million tonnes of waste, mainly from the domestic, horticulture, construction and demolition sectors.
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According to Hamad Al Ameri, General Manager of the CWM, 80% of the waste in Abu Dhabi is generated by businesses, and the UAE as a whole is losing AED 1.5 billion a year due to inadequate recycling of waste. However, the centre says the Abu Dhabi government has set some ambitious targets to stem the tide of waste. The goal is to reduce waste in the emirate by 80% over the next eight years, beginning with a 45% reduction by next year and 70% in the next five years. With efforts like these, John Irvine, managing director of Averda, a waste management company with over 1000 vehicles managed by a workforce of over 6000 in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Lebanon, says that waste management in the region has come a long way. “Waste management has moved from being a problem to becoming a solution. Waste management traditionally involved transporting waste from point A to point B in a landfill. Over the past ten years however, we have increasingly been moving from managing waste to providing environment solutions,” he says. There is still a long way to go. The major challenges in managing waste responsibly are in raising awareness about the issue, incentivizing organisations to manage their waste and in
upgrading the waste management infrastructure, according to Irvine. He estimates that 70% of organisations involved in responsible waste management around the region are SME’s, while the remaining 30% are government affiliated organisations. Therefore, a major target for education campaigns needs to be businesses. Larger enterprises that produce large volumes of waste have been quick to take advantage of the secondary revenue stream generated by recycling their waste. However, even if aware, small businesses that do not produce the necessary volumes of waste to make waste management economically feasible have yet to be motivated. Irvine recommends a mix of legislation and financial incentives. He suggests governments should pass legislation to make responsible waste management mandatory by law, and for governments to motivate small businesses by offering subsidies on government services, for example renewing work visas. Businesses can also be encouraged to reduce waste by imposing higher dumping fees. Dubai currently charges companies AED 10 per lorry to dump waste at landfills. In comparison, Sharjah charges
AED 50 per tonne; Abu Dhabi AED 225 per tonne, while in Europe, where landfills are designed to meet stricter environmental standards, these charges average AED 286 (€60). This is important because while the UAE does have vast tracts of desert land that can host landfills, they run the risk of soil and groundwater contamination, the generation gas from the breakdown of waste and are unpopular with residents. However, to manage the anticipated increase in demand for waste management, the government would have to upgrade the current infrastructure. To divert waste from landfills, Irvine recommends the development of waste to energy plants, which incinerate waste and use the gas generated to produce energy. Governments may be reluctant to fund capital intensive waste to energy facilities, so to encourage private sector development Irvine recommends that the government guarantee 25 year energy contracts with businesses to help them recoup their investment. In spite of the limited waste management infrastructure, Irvine is confident in the longterm potential of the UAE market, and Averda is scheduled to open two recycling plants in Dubai by mid-2012.
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