Bee’ah – the Middle East’s leading and award-winning integrated environmental and waste management company – and the NL Agency of The Netherlands announced the signing of a cooperative agreement for joint collaboration and close working relations, to enhance the environment of the Emirate of Sharjah and the UAE.
The MOU was signed at the Bee’ah stand at the Green Middle East exhibition, by Mr. Khaled Al Huraimel, the Chief Executive Officer of Bee’ah, and His Excellency Kees V.A. van Spronsen, the Consul General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United Arab Emirates, in the presence of His Excellency Salim Bin Mohammed Al Owais, Chairman of Bee’ah, cementing a formal working arrangement which will see NL Agency provide expert intelligence to Bee’ah in order to establish a sustainable waste management solution across Sharjah.
Realizing that in recent decades the Emirate of Sharjah has experienced a rapid population growth and is in need of the improvement of its waste management and treatment services, Bee’ah stressed that this MOU highlights the importance of safeguarding the environment globally by trans-boundary cooperation, not only between nations, but also between government organisations such as Bee’ah and NL Agency.
The agreement comes after a recent study visit by a delegation from Bee’ah to the Netherlands where they toured the country’s sophisticated waste to energy, e-waste and waste management facilities.
Under the agreement, Bee’ah and NL Agency will exchange valuable information and practices on waste management strategies, develop legislation policies, improve waste treatment and recycling methods to contribute to a better and cleaner environment of Sharjah, and position the Emirate as that which puts the environment in its best interests.
H.E. Al Owais said that Bee’ah’s long-term strategy to achieve zero-waste to landfill by 2015 would position the company as the leader of environmental change. Thus he believed the current agreement was a step closer to reaching that vision.
The Chairman also said that Bee’ah is currently operating and managing waste throughout the Emirate of Sharjah, and is potentially looking into expansion plans to other emirates. Bee’ah is also launching a Residential Recycling Programme at the end of the year, and investing in a wider range of equipment and infrastructure to develop its waste management and recycling programmes across Sharjah.
Commenting on the working agreement, H.E. Kees V.A. van Spronsen said: “Based on Bee’ah’s impressive qualifications and track record during its short history which is marked by many milestones, as well as the international best practices and the practicable infrastructure already being implemented by Bee’ah, it is in our best interest to provide the best advice through our experts, in order to enhance their strategies to be the best waste management company in the Middle East for leading environmental change.”
According to Mr. Al Huraimel, Bee’ah’s commitment to the environment and to economic prosperity was both an operational imperative and an ethical principle. Bee’ah’s challenge remained the continuous development of systems and implementation of infrastructure needed to address particular environmental problems, while at the same time promoting the economy.
“Bee’ah addresses this in many ways: the most obvious is by taking action as efficiently as possible through the use of international best practices and management techniques. The most positive impact is turning the present waste stream into new input resources for the economy,” Al Huraimel said.
He explained that remarkable achievements were reached at the Bee’ah Waste Management Complex (WMC) in Al Saj’ah in regard to the recovery of recyclable material which can be ploughed back into the local economy.
The agreement just concluded would ensure a sustainable economy and improved environmental solutions throughout Sharjah.
The Netherlands possess extensive knowledge and experience in waste management, taking a lot of pride in mastering the art of recycling and is reaching out to help countries that are now starting to make these types of investments and advising them on how to avoid potential obstacles.
The Kingdom today is able to recycle no less than 64% of its waste and most of the remainder is incinerated to generate energy. As a result, only a small percentage (1.8%) ends up in landfill. In the realm of recycling this is a shining and unique achievement. The Dutch approach is simple: avoid creating waste as much as possible, recover the valuable raw materials from it, generate energy by incinerating residual waste, and only then dump what is left over, but do so in an environmentally-friendly way. This approach – known as ’Lansink’s Ladder’ after the Member of the Dutch Parliament who proposed it – was incorporated into the Dutch legislation in 1994 and forms the basis of the ’waste hierarchy’ in the European Waste Framework Directive.
