UAE-based sustainability services pioneer, Bee’ah has announced that it has been appointed the waste management partner for Dubai International (DXB) and Dubai World Central (DWC) airports, both of which are operated and developed by Dubai Airports.
The terms in the agreement state that Bee’ah will manage both airside and landside waste management operations, including non-hazardous waste, hazardous waste, used cooking and used engine oil waste and all recyclables. In addition, it will also work in conjunction with Dubai Airports’ facilities care team to handle and dispose of all waste from excess baggage and confiscated materials.
Commenting on the achievement, HE Khaled Al Huraimel, group CEO at Bee’ah, said: “Bee’ah has repeatedly proven to be among the Middle East’s leading environmental services provider, through the focus on creating a sustainable quality of life in the region.”
“We are immensely proud to be the new waste management partner of one of the world’s busiest transportation hubs, Dubai Airports, and to support them with their sustainability mandate of reducing waste to landfills and implementing advanced recycling and material recovery solutions to promote a circular economy,” he added.
From January 1st 2020, Dubai Airports banned all single-use plastics including plastic cutlery, drinking straws and food packaging across its terminals in cooperation with its concessionaires and service partners.
In response to the partnership, Jose Oller, executive VP of Service & Operations at Dubai Airports said: “Most of the single-use plastics at our airports, including cutlery, drinking straws, and take-away food packaging have been replaced with sustainable alternatives as an immediate result of our initiative. While we work to reduce and ultimately achieve total elimination of single-use plastics across our airports, we need innovative waste management and recycling solutions to achieve our sustainability goals.”
Bee’ah’s Waste Management Complex processes three million tonnes of waste annually, by recycling, recovering and regenerating materials for reuse. Hence, Oller added that this is a welcome collaboration with Bee’ah and perfectly timed with Dubai Airports’ decision to ban single-use plastics.
Furthermore, Bee’ah stated it has achieved a 76 per cent waste diversion rate in Sharjah – the highest in the Middle East – and this is projected to reach 100 per cent in 2021 upon completion of the Middle East’s first waste-to-energy plant in the emirate itself.
