Dubai: In the course of a year, more than 60,000 UAE residents have managed to recycle waste equivalent to saving 14.7 million gallons of water.
These environmentally conscious residents from Jumeirah and Al Safa were given 240-litre, colour-coded trash bins: green for recyclables and black for general waste. General waste is collected daily, and recyclables on alternate days.
The increasing population of UAE and development of several residential and commercial clusters also adds a lot of pressure on waste management and thereby puts a lot of pressure on the landfill if it is not managed properly. The UAE currently has one of the highest carbon footprints in the world but Dulsco believes that if everyone participates, then a zero-waste society is possible.
Dulsco, a regional pioneer in waste management solutions and human resource solutions, made this announcement while celebrating the first year anniversary of Dubai Municipality’s ‘My City My Environment’ campaign. Dulsco worked closely with Dubai Municipality to ensure awareness was provided to all people involved, including families, maids, schools and commercial establishments.
“Dulsco was chosen by Dubai Municipality to handle two of the largest areas of Dubai comprising families living across 7,000 villas in Jumeirah 1, 2, 3 and Al Safa 1 and 2. As part of the campaign we did various activities including awareness programmes for maids, distribution of communication campaign materials, door-to-door visits by Dulsco team and Green Hope volunteers, surprise gifts for active recyclers and beach clean-up campaigns, among other initiatives. We would like to thank Dubai Municipality for giving us this responsibility and would also like to take this opportunity to commend the active participation by the residents,” S. Madhumohan, Director, Waste Management Services, Dulsco, said.
“Our family has always been environmentally conscious. We actively recycle and spread the word among our friends and neighbours. This project has helped us as it has brought the convenience of recycling to our doorstep. We used to be worried about what actually happens to our recyclables — but the Dulsco team showed us a video of the materials being recovered and sorted. This gave us an assurance that our recycling efforts are not being wasted,” said Alison and Robin, residents of Jumeirah 1.
The residents were urged to actively participate and play an important role in eradicating and proper management of waste through the 3Rs: ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. The campaign aimed to inculcate and sustain a behavioural change in residents in terms of proper waste management.
