Waste recycling scheme begins in Dubai neighbourhoods

Door-to-door waste collection for recyling has begun in Al Barsha, the first stage of plans to roll it out across the whole city.

DUBAI // The emirate has begun collecting refuse for recycling in Al Barsha neighbourhoods, the first stage of its city-wide scheme.

It is being run by waste-management company Averda in Al Barsha 1 and 2 residential areas.

Averda has been providing two bins to individual households for the collection of recyclable refuse since May 6, with some households producing up to six kilograms of such refuse a week.

The company aims to collect 50 per cent of the volume of recyclable refuse such as plastic, aluminium cans, glass, paper and cardboard.

Dubai Municipality’s initiative – My City, My Environment – was officially launched on Thursday, and it will include Jumeirah and Umm Suqeim. To date, Averda has provided the bins to 3,500 villas in Al Barsha.

To help promote the scheme, it has sent Arabic-speaking women to inform families about how to use the bins.

Jeroen Vincent, Averda’s chief operating officer, said residents’ responses to the scheme had been very positive.

The refuse collected would be reprocessed locally as much as possible, he said, adding that the firm would not dump it in landfills.

The municipality plans to encourage recycling throughout the city, and aims to recycle three quarters of Dubai’s refuse by 2018.

In 2012, it issued recycling guidelines to shopping centres and has given the malls until the end of this month to comply.