During a direct meeting organized by the Asharqia Chamber yesterday:
Al-Jabr: Recycling in the Kingdom is a promising investment project that we should benefit from it.
50% of the Kingdom's waste is recyclable, and what is recycled is within 1%
130 million tons annually. The volume of waste makes the Kingdom one of the world's countries in electronic waste and food surplus.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Recycling Company, Hisham Al-Jabr, called for waste-related legislation and regulations as they are activities that serve social issues, preserve public health, and are in line with all religious directives calling for extravagance, land architecture and maintaining working health.
He added during the meeting organized yesterday (Sunday 21/6/2020) the Center for Small and Medium Enterprises under the title (Investment Opportunities in Recycling) that recycling is mostly collected and transferred to the landfills, and it is assumed that what can be recycled is recycled, which is not This can be disposed of by the usual means, including backfilling, so what happens in the Kingdom that recycling does not exceed ten percent, and perhaps less, knowing that our collection process reaches 100%, unlike some countries that have a problem in this field, but some of them The collection percentage does not exceed 30%.
In this regard, he said that the volume of waste produced in the Kingdom amounts to 130 million tons annually, 75% of which are from organic waste, except for 18 million tons of solid waste, and 13 million tons of food surplus (420 kg per capita), constituting the largest waste of food in The world, and 50 thousand tons of medical waste at the very least, except for electronic waste, which occupies the Kingdom and the countries of cooperation the highest percentage in the world .. Noting that Riyadh Mardam alone receives 16000 tons per day of waste in its various forms, and Dammam Mardam 4500 tons per day, and unfortunately He has that most of the waste (85%) is landfill, knowing that 50% of it is recyclable to be raw materials for various other products, some of which are environmentally friendly.
Accordingly, al-Jabr believes that the issue is greater than setting up a company or launching an initiative, but we need systems and financial sustainability, and companies working in this field, collecting, sorting and treating waste, and recycling what can be recycled, knowing that such an approach faces many challenges highlighted by the absence of culture and its humility Which beliefs in the principle of recycling being alive for the earth and preventing wastefulness prohibited by the law of Islam.
He pointed out that he communicated with a hundred companies around the world, and he found that many countries are following this principle with regulations that are almost strict at times. In Japan, for example, anyone who lives somewhere is provided with a schedule for throwing waste. Paper, and so on, just as in Austria the population is obliged to sort their waste and whoever does not do so is subject to punishment and fine, while in France a decision was issued to prohibit throwing any food surplus from any marketing center, and if it is fit for human use, it is delivered to charities, and if it does not It may also be delivered to animals, and if neither this nor that is necessary, a clear mechanism must be disposed of.
He said that recycling companies get their income through several sources, the most prominent of which is the sale of the final product, or from waste collection fees, and some of them get income by the state itself, according to specific contracts, and that there is even an agreement signed by a group of countries around the world stating that each A company that reduces a certain percentage of pollution is given in exchange for money, this agreement which we hope the Kingdom will enter in the near future.
In this regard, he praised a number of initiatives that have taken place in the Kingdom, including the launch of the National Waste Center, which has special systems for organizing the collection, sorting and recycling process, and granting licenses for such operations. It has begun work and will launch its first factories early next year.
He reviewed a number of opportunities available in several fields, observing a number of challenges facing this activity, relying on presenting these opportunities on certain data witnessed by many countries of the world, which can be applied in the local market, such as agricultural waste, medical and electronic waste and food surplus, Which can be used for different industries.
