Sharjah residents given opportunity to be green

Sharjah residents now have more opportunities to recycle. The emirate launched a recycling scheme in December 2007 in partnership with Bee'ah, a public-private environmental company, which placed dozens of recycling bins along the Corniche Road. Now, the company has placed its blue recycling bins in residential towers and office buildings as part of a pilot programme aimed in part at calculating how much recyclable waste can be collected by households. If the scheme is determined to be a success, it will be launched city-wide.

As part of the pilot programme, 100 of the boxes have been delivered to the Lagoon Tower on the Buhaira Corniche, for instance. In February, 75 of the boxes were placed in offices and public areas used by the Government's finance department. The company is also expanding a similar scheme it is running for businesses launched last September. One hundred recycling bins have been delivered to Sharjah Discovery Centre, and a further 50 to the Sharjah Expo Centre.

Unlike some recycling programmes, the emirate does not require people to sort their waste, only that recyclable materials be kept separate from other refuse. The recyclable materials are then transported to a facility where they are sorted, weighed, and stored before being processed. According to World Bank estimates, tens of billions of dollars will be invested in the waste-management and environmental sectors in the Middle East over the next 10 years.

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