Egypt's Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad met with officials of Bee'ah, a UAE-based sustainability and environmental services company, to review the company's business plan in the New Administrative Capital (NAC), a cabinet statement said on Tuesday.

The representatives of Bee'ah, which won four Gulf Sustainability awards in 2018, showcased the company's experience in the field of waste management in the UAE, and the work plan to be applied in NAC to carry out the municipal management of the waste system, which includes collecting, transporting, recycling, and treating waste, besides cleaning streets.

Fouad expressed her wishes for the success of their experience in Egypt's NAC as a modern Egyptian city that has drawn local and international attention.

NAC is an extension of Cairo, and one of the largest urban development projects in the world. The city is built on an area of 500 square kilometres and is expected to accommodate 6.5 million people upon completion. Designed as a smart and sustainable city of the future, it will feature a new presidential district, a government district, a diplomatic district, the House of Representatives headquarters, and 21 residential areas.

Fouad said the environment ministry’s Waste Management Regulatory Authority is ready to provide the UAE company with the necessary technical support, especially in implementing the awareness campaigns on waste management as part of the ministry's Beautiful Egypt campaign.

"We're looking forward to benefiting from the company's experiment in the new capital to be applied in other governorates after the completion of the infrastructure work of the waste system," said the minister.

She highlighted prospects for cooperation between Bee'ah and the government over a strategy for the management of demolition and construction waste.

Fouad praised the efforts of the CEO of the Administrative Capital for Real Estate Development Ahmed Zaki Abdeen to make the NAC a model for environmental and sustainable urban planning by using solar energy, increasing the number of green areas, and recycling waste. The city will be be eco-friendly, with fewer harmful emissions, she added.

Director-General of Services at the NAC company, Major General Adel El-Zumaiti, who attended the meeting, stated that Bee'ah will commenced work in the administrative capital in early March. The company has already supplied a number of equipment and vehicles for waste collection and street cleaning operations.

Some 1.2 Sq km was allocated on the Cairo-Suez road, about 16km from NAC, to assist the company in sanitary burying and treatment operations.

The company aims to divert waste instead of the traditional ways of resorting to landfills by 80 percent through comprehensive and integrated solutions for waste management, said Senior Manager of International Business at Bee'ah Mohammed bin Kuwair at Egypt's 10th forum of Corporate Social Responsibility, held in November.

He pointed out that the company aims to use 400 environmentally friendly vehicles powered electrically and provide more than 30,000 waste collection points to serve over two million residents in the NAC.

Kuwair pointed out that the company is close to achieving its primary goal of transforming Sharjah in the UAE to the first waste-free city in the region by the end of 2021.

The Bee'ah team comprises more than 1,000 people who will provide services to around two million people in the first phase of the city’s development. The team will use WastePro plus solutions, the region's first integrated digital solution, to track and control waste from the stage of collection up to recycling and treatment facilities.

Artificial intelligence technologies will simplify the process and increase efficiency.