Recycling company calls for more support for plastic processing in UAE

The Emirates Environmental Technology plant in Al Ain is still unable to harvest the quantities of plastics necessary to run at full capacity because large amounts of the materials are ending up in landfill.

AL AIN // When Emirates Environmental Technology (EET) opened its plastics recycling plant in Al Ain at the end of 2011, it expected to be processing vast amounts of hard plastics and plastic film every day.

Three years on, the facility, which was opened as an extension to an existing sorting station and compost plant, is still unable to harvest the quantities necessary to run at full capacity because large amounts of hard plastics continue to end up in landfills.

The Sharjah-based company has the contract to process all the waste from Abu Dhabi’s Eastern Region. In exchange, it is allowed to sell all recyclable materials recovered from the waste. Materials, such as metal and paper, can then be sold on to other recyclers.

It reprocesses household waste plastic sheet and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) at a facility near the Al Ain landfill.

The company’s line for HDPE – a hard plastic used to make shampoo bottles and non-transparent milk containers – is operating at only half and sometimes even 30 per cent of its capacity, said Katharina Goeschl, the company’s general manager.

“If we have material we reach 20 to 22 tonnes per day production, but some days we are not running because we do not have raw material,” she said.

Once the HDPE and plastic film are recovered from the rest of the waste, they are cut into granules and sold to companies across the region and beyond. They are then used to make such goods as pipes, storage tanks and containers.

Early last year, a programme to encourage commercial establishments to segregate their waste came into effect. So far, however, it has not helped as companies are now sorting the segregated waste and selling it to the highest bidder instead of bringing it to the EET sorting station.

The company complements the amounts of HDPE it recovers from Al Ain waste – about 100 tonnes a month – with purchases from recyclers in Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah and occasionally Sharjah.

Often it faces competition from traders offering prices higher than those on the international market, said Ms Goeschl. This material is then shipped abroad.

Ms Goeschl believes the Government could help local recyclers by encouraging the sale and processing of recycling materials domestically, giving priority to local processing companies.

Another step could be to allow the import of raw materials that could be recycled locally, something currently forbidden for recyclable materials recovered from waste.

“It would be a different situation if we were able to import raw material, but this is not possible,” said Ms Goeschl.

“It is sad. We do not want to use material from the outside because we have enough waste here. But it has to be recovered first and then it should not go to China, it should stay in the country.”