Dubai Municipality to generate energy from organic waste

Dubai - The municipality has also reused around 10 per cent of waste.

The Dubai Municipality is currently mulling ways to generate energy from organic waste, as well as the production of compost from these wastes, a DM official said.
Talking about the municipality's comprehensive plan to deal with waste, Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director-General of DM, said: " We are looking at it from two main angles, the first is to minimise waste and the second is to reuse it. We believe that waste is a real treasure and not just waste. It 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 it that can be safely buried so that 98 per cent of the land that could have been lost would have been used if ordinary landfills were used," said Lootah.
Elaborating, he said: "The strategic plan to deal with waste has three stages; the first phase, in which the municipality succeeded in reducing the waste volume from 11,500 tonnes per day to 5,532 tonnes per day. The municipality has also reused around 10 per cent of waste. We hope, according to the UAE National Plan, by 2020, we will be able to recycle 75 per cent of the waste and by 2030 we will reach zero waste in landfills," he said. "We have 11 landfill sites in Dubai, the oldest of which is Al Qusais Landfill, established in 1976. It still absorbs the waste. The capacity of these landfills is different and its area is about 10.011 million square metres. Hygienic dumping is currently being carried out in six landfills - Al Qusais, Jebel Ali, Al Bayadiyah, Al Habab, Hatta, and Al-Warsan," Lootah said.
During the first three months of 2017, waste workers collected 328,031 tonnes from all sites and areas, covered by the waste collection and disposal services provided by the department. Saifai 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.
Did you know?
> Dubai's oldest landfill is in Al Qusais and was set up in 1976
> By 2020, Dubai will be able to recycle 75 per cent of the volume of waste; and by 2030 there will be zero waste in landfills
> DM has reduced the volume of waste from 11,500 tonnes per day to 5,532 tonnes per day.
reporters@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai