The UAE in recent years has been well noted for two things: its world famous multi-million dollar aspirations and constructions, and its not so ahead-of-the-game recycling and eco-friendly initiatives. But the eco-scene in Abu Dhabi is emerging: Abu Dhabi Week talks trash with the eco-entities keen to get the three R’s (reduce, reuse and recycle) rolling off people’s tongues

Abu Dhabi Eco-Chicks
The Abu Dhabi Eco-Chicks comprises a small group of green gal-pals on a mission to interact with the community through hosting various fun environmental events and programmes. “We just found it so frustrating when we moved here and found so much waste and very little environmental awareness.”

A casual talk over lunch with friends turned into a serious decision to take matters into their own hands, and their first event was a quickly put together candlelight vigil on the Corniche to coincide with the Global Day of Climate Action events that happened in Copenhagen late last year.

Since then, they’ve done other interactive events such as a ‘Green Drinks’ social at One to One Hotel for UAE National Environment Day and celebrated last month’s Earth Hour with the Yas Hotel which switched off all its lights.
Information: www.abudhabiecochicks.wordpress.com/ | Facebook Page: Abu Dhabi Eco Chicks

Environment Friends Society
Founded in 1991, with the help of close to 500 members, the Environment Friends Society’s main objective is to increase awareness on environmental issues through school visits, presentations and exhibits across Abu Dhabi. Through the help of a few government departments, they have been actively collecting paper and plastic and have a few stations set up with some schools (mostly Arabic-speaking institutes), and we spotted a neighbour contributing to the paper pile in a bin just outside their Khaleej Al Arabi Street headquarters. Chairperson Eisa Al Shamsi says that even more schools have been approaching them this year to hold talks. “We’ve also been talking with the Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi about some big events near the end of the year.”
Information: 02 665 5113

Emirates Environmental Group (EEG)
The EEG was founded in 1991 as a small NGO and slowly but surely blossomed into a large and colourful network of individuals and organisations backing the environment across the Emirates. They have an impressive waste management programme that focuses on six major recyclables – aluminium, cans, paper, plastic, glass, batteries and toner cartridges – and they hope to cater to wood and old clothes soon. EEG organises the biggest recycling campaigns led by a civil society organisation in the UAE (the next one will be in December), and regularly holds events across the Emirates such as educational workshops and competitions, collection and
clean-up campaigns.

The group has a number of big and brightly coloured recycling cages around Abu Dhabi which cater to collecting paper, cans and plastic. Plastic is picked up by Zenath Recycling and Waste Management, a UAE company with a branch in Abu Dhabi, but most other items are taken to material specific factories in Jebel Ali.
Information: www.eeg-uae.org

Centre for Waste Management (CWM)
The Centre for Waste Management is a new branch of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi that opened about a year ago. A lot of their initiatives, which include the recycling of glass, cans, plastic, aluminium, cardboard, and even oil and tyres are still just being phased in or are currently on trial. Two centres are currently in operation to process the huge amounts of construction and demolition waste the city produces (which makes up 60 percent of our waste stream). One centre is stationed in Al Dhafra (processing 5,000 tonnes a day) and one in Al Ain (processing 2,000 tonnes per day). They’ve also started distributing two special 240 litre bins per household – green for glass, cans, plastic and cardboard, black for all other waste – in the suburban areas of Officers City, Khalidiya and Bain Al Jesran, and the Al Ain districts of Al Masoudi and Falaj Al Haza. More than 100,000 bins have been ordered for the next phase of the environmental scheme which will eventually cover all villa areas in Abu Dhabi including Al Ain and the Western Region.

Take My Junk UAE
My Junk UAE is a fast and professional non-profit junk removal service comprising of pretty much two labourers and a truck driver who aim to prove that one man’s junk is indeed another man’s treasure. The team make trips to Abu Dhabi on a weekly basis and will take any and everything off your hands from old computers to books to abayas to canned foods, all at no cost (but donations are strongly encouraged). “We come to your house, wherever you are in the UAE and collect any unwanted items, some of which are sold in daily garage sales held in our warehouse; the rest we distribute to Ajman labour camps. Our 2010 target is to help as many unpaid labourers as possible,” says founder Feisal Khan.
Information: www.takemyjunkuae.com | This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it |
050 179 4045

Get involved Al Beit Al Mithali: To coincide with World Earth Day (22nd April), National Geographic Abu Dhabi has recently hosted a series of cool interactive programmes – and the latest of these is Al Beit Al Mithali. Meaning ‘Efficient House’ in Arabic, it’s an interactive open plan home stationed in the middle of Marina Mall highlighting simple and inexpensive energy-saving tips that can be applied throughout the home; it’ll be open to the public for a limited time. Don’t forget to ‘take a pledge’ on one of the efficiency tips by visiting the house online at www.natgeotv.ae/earthday. Paper trail: The Eco Chicks will take to the Corniche on 7th May for ‘Trash to Treasure’. From 4.30-7pm the girls will tell the story of paper, where it came from, how not to waste it and how to reuse it. Information: www.abudhabiecochicks.wordpress.com/ or visit their Facebook page: Abu Dhabi Eco-Chicks. Do the can-can: The Emirates Environmental Group will host a can collection drive on 8th May in all of the Emirates. The collection starts at 9am; the American International School in Abu Dhabi will be receiving cans on the day but for more information on where else you can deliver cans, or to download a registration form, visit www.eeg-uae.org/

Planting seeds
Plenty of Abu Dhabi schools are actively teaching their students about the impact of their actions on the environment.

GEMS American Academy
“A lot of our art work involves recycling and reusing items that parents bring from home. In observation of Earth Week, we carried around garbage bags for the day – at the end of it, we put all the garbage together so the children could see how much rubbish we all create in a day – we’re encouraging them to use reusable containers instead of disposable ones.” [Cindy Padgett]

The Canadian International School
“We mainly recycle by reusing products in the classroom for art projects or other visual projects. Recycling is part of the Canadian curriculum, so we’re really hoping we can go visit the recycling centre one day. We’ve been actively pursuing more ways we can recycle, but we also encourage our students to reduce the amount of waste they produce by reusing whenever they can.” [Tracy Innes]

The Pearl Primary School
“The Eco Club at The Pearl Primary School collects different types of rubbish at different times, so one week we’ll ask parents and students to bring in newspapers that teachers can use in their classrooms and the next week we might ask for cardboard. In observation of Earth Week, we also planted flowers all around the school.”
[Eco Club Coordinator]

Al Raha International School
“We’ve been working with the company that does the recycling for Raha Gardens – we’re still waiting for our proper bins, but we’ve been collecting paper to recycle on our own. Because we’re an IB school, our Grade 5 students have to do a final project and a lot of our students chose to do their projects about the environment, promoting the environment within the school and in the community and showing how they are environmentally friendly.” [Lucy Yule]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kara Martin and Laura Fulton