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EEG’s Can Collection Drive in Full Swing

As many as 187 organisations and individuals, including schools, corporate houses and government institutions took part in the drive across the UAE.

Dubai topped the list with 34 participants and Abu Dhabi stood second with 20-odd participants. Every year, the participants collect cans on an individual basis or at the oganisational level throughout the year, which are then finally brought together at various collection points across the UAE at a massive Can Collection Drive in the month of May.

But this year, the EEG departed from its usual practice. “Taking into consideration the feedback received from participants to carry out the drive in cooler months, we decided to do it in February, apart from the usual drive in May,” said Ishani Sinha, EEG’s Recycling Programme Coordinator, who was stationed at Safa Park — one of the two collection points in Dubai — on Thursday along with other EEG staff and volunteers.

In the drive last year, 18,000 kgs of cans were collected. This year, EEG hopes to break that record. “We don’t have this year’s numbers yet, but it will be clear in two days,” said Sarah Baker, EEG Committee Member, who was stationed at the Zabeel Park, Dubai’s second collection point.

“We have received tremendous support so far from people from all walks of life, prominent orgnisations like Dubal, Dubai Municipality, Marriott and Abela etc. have chipped in with big contributions. Even individual

volunteers have come up with good collections,” added Sarah Baker.

Each volunteer or organisation is assigned a particular time and point where they can drop in their collection of cans, from where each bag of cans is weighed and dumped into a gigantic container. The containers from different points in the country are then emptied at the recycling facility where the cans are either recycled into new cans or made into various products including automobile parts.

“As EEG is a non-profit organisation, the money collected from the sale of recycled products is used in covering EEG’s expenses and its year-round environmental activities,” informed Sinha. Going by the circumstantial evidence, Dubai, with its huge truck-load of cans collected from various premises, seemed to be the biggest contributor at the Safa Park collection point.

Apart from the annual can collection drives, EEG’s activities include collection and recycling of waste paper and plastic as well as tree planting campaigns.

For more info contact: 04-3448622. shafaat@khaleejtimes.com

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