Sharjah residents to get colour-coded recycling bins in waste trial

A new service will also collect unwanted heavy goods like furniture and appliances to prevent public dumping

By using smart bins and route optimisation technology, carbon emissions, fuel consumption, time, manpower and vehicle usage can be reduced. Courtesy Bee'ah

A Sharjah community will get colour-coded rubbish bins to improve recycling rates.

The trial in Al Rahmaniya will see residents given green wheelie bins for general waste and blue recycling bins for items like plastics and cardboard packaging.

Recycling company Bee'ah said it aims to extend the trial across the emirate if successful.

Sharjah invested in curbside collections in 2012, before the other emirates, and now only a quarter of waste goes to landfill. At present it does not ask residents to separate their own waste.

Bins will be emptied in Al Rahmaniya - a villa district outside Sharjah city - once per week on Saturdays between 9am and 11am.

Khaled Al Huraimel, Bee’ah group chief executive, said the aim is to provide more "ways and means to recycle waste and mitigate their impact on the environment, to pioneer a more sustainable quality of life".

He said the city needs residents to get involved if the system is to work.

Households should throw general waste in the green bin and recycleables like plastic and cardboard in the blue bin. Courtesy: Bee'ah

"We have now achieved a waste diversion rate of 76 per cent in Sharjah, and we hope to make Sharjah the region’s first zero-waste city by 2021," he said.

"However, this ambition can only be realised through collective efforts, and it is very important for our community to be engaged in this progress.

"By helping them to segregate and recycle their waste, we believe we can work together towards making our homes and city cleaner, better, and more sustainable.”

Bee'ah is also launching a heavy waste disposal service dubbed You Call We Haul to collect unwanted furniture and appliances.

The company will provide bulk bags for disposal of materials such as worn pots, trees, paintings, carpets and dead bushes, as part of its bulky waste collection programme.

Residents can call the Bee'ah call centre or use the mobile app to call for delivery.

On average, UAE residents produce close to 2.7 kilograms of waste daily, one of the highest generation rates globally, Bee'ah said. On a yearly basis the country generates 6.5 million tonnes of waste, the equivalent weight of more than 14 Burj Khalifa buildings.

A decade ago Sharjah faced a major waste-disposal crisis with as much as 14,000 tonnes per day being near the village of Sajaa.

At one stage the landfill site was five metres high. By comparison, Dubai, with a much larger population, today collects about 8,000 tonnes of waste per day.