Saudi Arabia’s war on waste
New refuse management system in the Kingdom to handle 106 million tons by 2035
As rapid industrialization, high population growth and fast urbanization has led to increasing waste and pollution, waste management has become an essential need for Saudi Arabia, where more than 106 million tons of waste are expected to be treated by 2035.
While maintaining responsibility toward its people and environment, Saudi Arabia has taken serious measures to improve recycling and waste management in the country, which is home to more than 34 million people.
The Saudi Cabinet recently approved a waste management system that will contribute to unifying the regulatory and legislative framework in the Kingdom. Details about the system will be announced in less than two months as it will also reveal if certain waste management fees will be imposed on the public.
Speaking to Arab News, Abdullah Faisal Al-Sibai, CEO of MWAN, the National Center for Waste Management, said that their vision stems from the Saudi Vision 2030 in protecting and preserving the environment in general along with the improvement of waste management.
“The Saudi Vision 2030 emphasizes working on reducing pollution by raising the efficiency of waste management and diminishing all kinds of pollution,” he said. “For that reason, we are establishing an integrated project for waste recycling.”
Al-Sibai also said the waste management sector would annually contribute an estimated amount of nearly SR120 billion ($32 billion) to the national gross domestic product by 2035.
“The waste management sector is expected to generate 77,000 job opportunities by the same year,” he said.
Stimulating investment and maximizing the participation of the private sector is one of the center’s strategic objectives, Al-Sibai said, while also enhancing the sector’s economic sustainability.
The environmental degradation caused by solid waste in 2021 was estimated at $1.3 billion, the CEO said.
“Saudi Arabia produces about 53 million tons of waste every year, and such quantity can surely increase soil pollution and contamination of groundwater,” Al-Sibai said. “That is in addition to its effect on wildlife and the environment of the country’s seawater and coasts.”
Highlighting the quantity of waste that can be recycled and the optimal ways to dispense with the waste that cannot be recycled, Al-Sibai said that the center is working toward its goal of recycling 35 percent of all types of waste by 2035.
“As for the waste that cannot be recycled, they are treated through the production of derivative fuels or the production of energy,” he said.
Al-Sibai said organic waste is turned into compost, “while the waste that cannot be processed safely ends up in landfills.
“As for radioactive wastes, they are not within the tasks of our center. The center regulates all types of waste except for radioactive and military wastes,” he said.
According to the National Center for Waste Management website, the center estimates that some 1,329 treatment facilities and landfills will be required to treat 106 million tons of waste.
The center organizes the activities of importing, exporting, collecting, transporting, sorting, processing and final disposal of waste. The center also oversees the aftercare of waste disposal sites in a manner that ensures the enhancement of environmental protection and public health.
It also encourages and stimulates investment in the management system of all waste, except for radioactive materials. The center, moreover, creates investment opportunities in the system, and studies different models for financing waste management to achieve financial sustainability.
Additionally, MWAN issues licenses to all service providers, establishments, investors, and facilities related to waste management activities the center is concerned with. It also grants permits to recycling facilities after all necessary requirements have been met, before the licensing of such facilities is issued by the competent authority.
MWAN also offers training programs to raise the level of performance and build the capabilities of the technical staff working in the system.
Furthermore, it encourages research and innovation in the fields of integrated waste management as it also coordinates with universities, research centers and institutions.
Last November, the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture along with MWAN joined hands to seek new solutions and investments in the solid waste management sector.
Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih said with rapid industrialization and urban development, the Kingdom will witness a rise in the amount of solid waste produced annually that will ultimately lead to an increase in opportunities in the sector.
“To imagine the scope of what today’s agreement signing signifies and the scale of investment opportunities arising from it, we ought to know that initial estimates indicate that 53 million tons of waste come from the Kingdom (annually),” Al-Falih said.
The minister added that the agreement enforces the ministry’s interest in “attracting and developing investment in the waste management sector,” as well as strengthening strategic cooperation with MWAN where both parties can work on removing obstacles that investors face in the sector.
Under the Kingdom’s G20 presidency, several initiatives and projects have been launched to promote sustainability, including investment cycling, carbon cycling investment and the green hydrogen plant in NEOM.
Al-Falih said the Kingdom is working hard to catch up with the rest of the world in terms of sustainability and will soon set standards for it as “Protecting the Earth” is a central theme in its G20 presidency.
Nearly half of the total waste comes from three major cities in the Kingdom: 21 percent from Riyadh, 14 percent from Jeddah and eight percent from Dammam, said Hasan Al-Sultan, director of waste management at the Ministry of Investment.
According to Jeroen Vincent, the former CEO of the Saudi Investment Recycling Co., most of the country’s waste is currently being landfilled at “a very low price,” with an average of $1.87 per ton.
He proposed the private sector and regulators come together to “discourage this landfill,” in order to encourage investment.
Saudi Investment Recycling Co. is the largest industrial waste management company in the GCC with a fully integrated platform to handle, store, transport, treat, and safely dispose of the hazardous waste generated by industries, while achieving the highest levels of circular economy.
According to the SIRC’s goals for 2035, the Saudi waste sector is aiming to divert 85 percent of the industrial hazardous waste from landfills through recycling and treatment.
The sector also aims to divert 60 percent of construction and demolition waste from landfills — recycling 12 percent, reusing 35 percent and treating 13 percent.
Moreover, it plans to divert 100 percent of municipal solid waste from landfills through recycling 81 percent of this waste, and processing 19 percent to use as energy sources (waste-to-energy).
With these objectives, SIRC is keen to achieve the ambitious targets set by the Waste Management National Regulatory Framework for 2035, which includes a reduction of 13 million tons of carbon dioxide, attracting direct foreign investments of $1.6 billion, creating 23,000 job opportunities and contributing $9.9 billion to the country’s national GDP.
The Saudi Vision 2030 emphasizes working on reducing pollution by raising the efficiency of waste management and diminishing all kinds of pollution. For that reason, we are establishing an integrated project for waste recycling.
Abdullah Faisal Al-Sibai
CEO of the National Center for
Waste Management