Dubai: With only one in five Dubai shopping centres and malls segregating waste at source, Dubai Municipality has moved to address issues malls face in implementing the policy.
A senior Dubai Municipality official told Gulf News that the initiative is part of efforts to achieve 100 per cent implementation by 2013.
Shopping centres and malls had been sent a circular last year urging them to segregate waste at source. However many of them did not comply with the Waste Management Department’s deadline, which was set for February this year.
The Waste Management Department had also asked shopping centres and malls to submit monthly reports on the action they had taken to segregate waste. So far, only 20 per cent of shopping centres and malls have been able to comply with the directives and they have been informed that Dubai Municipality is apprised of the situation.
“We will soon hold a meeting with the representatives from shopping centres and malls to discuss reasons for non-implementation. We want to know if they are facing any problems in implementing and want to remove those hurdles. We do not want to give them any reasons for non-implementation,” Abdul Majid Saifaei, director of the Waste Management Department at the municipality, told Gulf News.
Earlier, major retail establishments were told that Local Order No 11/2003 would be applicable if they failed to comply with the directives by February 2012.
Saifaei said, “Our goal is to ensure that all the malls and shopping centres comply. Imposing fines is not our goal, we will listen to what the issues are so that these are effectively taken care of.”
The meeting with retail establishments is set to take place in the coming weeks and Dubai Municipality is confident of meeting its target of 100 per cent waste segregation by 2013.
Dubai aims to ultimately recycle 100 per cent of its waste and bring the percentage of garbage being sent to landfills from the existing 80-90 per cent to zero by 2030. Asking shopping malls to segregate waste at source will help the emirate attain this goal.
According to the Middle East Council of Shopping Centres (MECSC), Dubai currently has 70 shopping malls and shopping centre units totalling 2.6 million square metre of retail space.
Last year, an average of 8,000 tonnes of general municipal waste was generated daily in Dubai, with the individual average put at 2.8 kilograms daily. Dubai has succeeded in cutting its daily waste generation from around 10,000 tonnes a day over the last few years.