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Dubai Carbon proposes new waste value chain

DUBAI, February 2, 2017

Dubai Carbon Centre of Excellence, a first-of-its-kind centre in the region, said its District Waste Proposal has made it to the final round of interview in the Spring Version of Dubai Future Accelerators (DFA) 2017.

A unique program, DFA provides a dynamic environment where companies and entities can explore new opportunities to deliver transformative technologies and services, culminating in companies receiving a MOU (or other commercial agreement) to deliver a funded pilot project from the government of Dubai.

Challenging conventional wisdom, Dubai Carbon said it has proposed the transformation of the current waste rooms in buildings and communities into material recovery facilities.

These facilities would work under a cookie dough cutter approach, whereas all tools and processes would be provided out of the box to facilitate the behavioural transition, it added.

Ivano Iannelli, the chief executive of Dubai Carbon, said: "The concept of district waste that we have proposed, is in response to the challenge set by Dubai Municipality. Here in the region waste is often looked at as a problem because of the negative stigma given to itself."

"It is often dealt with conservativism and proverbially swept under the carpet. However, Dubai Carbon firmly believes that the resource recovery rates and efficiencies are often lost to the benefit of a very cash rich industry that has no benefit in reducing waste," pointed out Iannelli.

Dubai Carbon, which comes under the Supreme Council of Energy, promotes the emirate’s transition to a low-carbon green economy and is responsible for monitoring its levels of carbon emissions.

As per Dubai Carbon estimates, a family in Dubai has to pay indirectly for the cost of waste management either through service fees allocated by owners’ associations or via municipality Fees.

The government entity approximates the cost of waste collection for an average household to be in the range of Dh7,500 ($2041) per year (six weekly scheduled collections at Dh24 per collection). Under the new regime, households would generate Dh2000 instead, thus creating a positive change of almost Dh10 per household.

"Community waste challenges conventional wisdom and works towards redesigning the entire waste value chain to maximsze efficiency and engagement. The idea of submitting our concept of Community Waste came from the initial award we won at the X-Challenge, which was held by the Ministry of Finance," stated Iannelli.

Dubai Carbon firmly believes that most waste streams can be recovered, however due to the vast majority of waste being of organic nature, current waste practices have always had to plan for non-recyclables in scheduled collections to avoid foul smelling decay. This is further relevant to other ongoing initiatives country wide looking at reducing food waste.

According to him, bringing the waste cycle closer to the waste generator (end user), allows for a greater synergy. The end user and its domestic staff are then part of the process and can visibly and tangibly avail of benefits and incentives, stated Iannelli.

“Our vision is simple, transform food waste and organics into a fuel source, and decentralize waste management to the communities, allowing them to manage the economic value of resource recovery, thus making the communities compete and compare, while avoiding unnecessary costs and resources,” he added.

Dubai Carbon clearly sees benefits to its community waste management proposal, for instance the avoidance of truck collections (Dh500+ per truck load) and landfill dumping fees (Dh10 to 120 per ton). The other benefits include lower CO2 from managed transportation, and higher economic value from the sale of recyclables.

"The government entities also propose the manufacturing of RDF to be sold as coal replacement fuel, while developing first of its kind Engineered Solid Fuels (ESF)," said Iannelli.

"Dubai Carbon supposes that its approach is very suited to the region and Dubai, as it allows the owners associations, businesses and others to become a direct stakeholder in the initiative. Just like Union Cooperatives, the legal entity will distribute pro-rata dividends and rewards to its registered stakeholders," he added.-TradeArabia News Service




Tags: Dubai Carbon | waste value chain |

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