YOU DUMP 2.5KG OF GARBAGE DAILY, WHERE DO YOU THINK IT GOES?

With nearly 50,000 massage cards being picked up from Dubai neighbhourhoods daily, 400,000 cigarette butts collected from beaches, and over 30 tonnes of waste cleaned up during a nationwide campaign — it seems like the country isn’t a stranger to the littering problem. In fact, an average person in the UAE produces a total of 2.5kg of waste every day, according to studies.

What would be interesting to know, however, is — where does all this waste go and do we have facilities that are large enough to store it?

The answer, sim- ply, is: No.

With the growing population of Dubai, the emirate will need a waste landfill twice the size of Palm Jumeirah (11.8 square kilometres) by 2050, Khaleej Times reported last year. Dubai is expected to produce 272 million tonnes of waste annually by then.

The conclusion was based on a study carried out by the Dubai Municipality (DM), which analysed the annual waste production and the size of a landfill area that’s required.

In 2013, Dubai produced 2.8 million tonnes of waste and the landfill space was measured to be only 124,000sqm.

“By 2020, waste production is expected to be 10 times more and the needed landfill space must also be 10 times bigger than what was used in 2013. With the estimated growth rate in Dubai — and should we not reduce our waste production — by 2050, we would need at least two times the size of Palm Jumeirah to put our municipal waste in,” Naji Alradhi, waste management and treatment expert at the Dubai Municipality, had said.

This means that if residents continue to litter and produce waste at the rate they do (especially, if you consider the growing population), the emirate’s landfills will literally be overflowing with waste. And that’s not a pretty sight for a city that depends heavily on tourism and attracts expats to live here.

So, what is being done to ensure that the bad habits of high waste production and littering wouldn’t affect the emirate in the long run?

The waste in some of the landfills are being converted into energy. Dubai is building a waste-to-energy conversion facility, worth over Dh2 billion, that can power 120,000 homes.

The emirate of Sharjah is also working towards building a facility that will turn its waste into electricity. The plant is expected to be operational by 2021 and will process more than 37.5 tonnes of municipal solid waste per hour to generate electricity.

Khaleej Times had reported that it’ll divert 300,000 tonnes of waste away from landfills each year. It’ll generate 30MW of energy, which’ll power up to 28,000 households.

“The Emirates Waste to Energy Company is redefining the landscape of clean energy in the UAE, especially with the establishment of our flagship project, the Sharjah Waste to Energy Facility,” said Khaled Al Huraimel, group CEO of Bee’ah, had said.

“As the region’s first wasteto-energy plant, this facility demonstrates an innovative approach to commercialising energy solutions, while ensuring sustainable growth. It will also facilitate the achievement of the UAE’s Vision 2021 targets of deriving 24 per cent of energy from clean sources, and of diverting 75 per cent of waste away from landfills.”