How circular economy can be profitable
EXPERTS DISCUSS BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC MODEL BASED ON REUSE-RECYCLE-REDUCE
The Italian-made handbag used to be on display — literally — on Shaikh Zayed Road as part of a huge billboard. Matteo Boffa, general manager and cofounder of Etuix, sequestered the material and turned the giant billboard made of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) or vinyl into handbags, shoes, trolleys, wallets, and belts.
PVC is all around us. It’s the third largest thermoplastic material by volume, that if not recycled or reused, would pose an environmental hazard.
In Dubai alone, more than a million square metres of PVC are produced every year and more than 500,000kg destroyed per year, Boffa said.
“The high cost of renting advertising space on Shaikh Zayed Road — Dh18 million per year for one good spot — [is cost prohibitive] for many companies, that is why they rent space for a short term. This results in a high turnover of PVCs,” he added.
Boffa decided to take the material and “breathe new life” into it and make it last 10 more years, instead of letting it end up in the landfill.
Circular economy concept
What Boffa did is a practical example of adopting a circular economy, where society does away with the take-makedispose culture and instead brings waste full circle.
This shift in the economic model is doable and commercially viable even in the UAE, said panellists at the Emirates Environmental Group’s (EEG) fourth panel discussion yesterday. It only takes motivation, effort, and a change in mindset, EEG chairperson Habiba Al Marashi said.
Currently, 66 per cent of the waste generated in the UAE goes to landfills. “To make a circular economy work, that 66 per cent should not go to landfills,” she added.
Best practices
Speakers representing the industrial sector, environmental consulting firms and the remanufacturing industry presented their best practices in implementing the circular economy in Dubai.
Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), for example, recycles its Spent Potlining (SPL), a hazardous waste material generated when producing aluminium. EGA generates 33,000 metric tonnes of SPL every year. By adopting a recycle-reuse-reduce philosophy, EGA recycled over 96,000 tonnes of waste, up from over 77,000 tonnes in 2016.
“This is a clear, evident part of the circular economy where we take ownership of our waste or our by-products until the end of treatment,” said panellist Heba Saleh Abdul Hamid Akasha from Environment and Waste Management at EGA.
Another example is remanufacturing ink cartridges, said Dr Sassan Khatib-Shahidi, co-founder and CEO of German Imaging Technologies Dubai. “It takes 20 times more energy to make a new cartridge than to reuse one. Not one goes to waste here: 80 per cent is reused while 20 per cent is recycled.”