Worldwide, humanity consumes about 300% of the available resources that the earth produces every year. This is what made scientists and specialists consider it important to recycle waste in order to benefit from its waste materials, such as metals, wood, paper, plastic and food residue.

Internationally, it has markets and stock exchanges, an industry based on ideas and technologies that are constantly evolving and in which major countries have taken concrete steps. In the Middle East region, models are taking this approach, adopting circular economic policy.

The UAE "Tadweer group" adopts a green approach as an applied outlet for waste management and recycling, and recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Environment to explore and develop opportunities for cooperation and investment in waste management and recycling.

What is the goal of the "Tadweer Group", and what steps have been taken to expand its activity outside the UAE?

Ali Al-Dhaheri: "Tadweerg group" in its investment philosophy focuses on following up on opportunities for cooperation and investment outside the UAE in order to expand its activities, in addition to transferring the expertise and available capabilities to all the countries of the region, especially those that face many challenges in the waste file and need technical and financial support. In addition to achieving the growth of a recycling company, which was restructured in 2022 by a decision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, from being a government company to a public shareholding company fully owned by Abu Dhabi Holding Company, with the aim of achieving the highest efficiency in benefiting from available waste materials such as plastic, wood and organic products, which followed by operating the largest waste conversion plant in the region to clean energy with a capacity of 900,00 tons per year, and another plant with a capacity of 14 million tons per year, 200 million as the infrastructure of a recycling system.

What values are necessary in Arab societies to make waste more valuable?

- The concept and culture of separation at the source, which is absent from the behavior and culture of our Arab societies, is the top priority to achieve sustainability and to benefit fully from the recycling of waste. It requires the dissemination of more social awareness and the creation of incentive opportunities to apply it on the ground. But according to the current situation, waste sorting stations have an important role to carry out operations for each item of waste individually, so that it can be distributed to the companies in charge of recycling according to their specialization. The rejected materials at the end of the recycling procedures tend to be incinerated or converted to energy, in addition to the importance of the collection stations and also the intermediate stations, which is an important stage.

How do you see your recent signing of the MoU with Egypt, represented by the Ministry of Environment, and the chances of success explored by the Toure Group for investment in Egypt?

- Egypt has made great strides in the solid waste file, whether in terms of regulation and issuing the waste management law, or in terms of putting waste fees on the electricity bill for every citizen. The mechanisms of the system are in the form of a partnership between the citizen and the state to solve the waste problem, which increases the burden on the state.

What are the challenges that face Arab countries in waste recycling?

- Most countries need financial support to create opportunities for waste exploitation, especially in countries with high population density, which produce a huge amount of waste and cause it an environmental burden. In addition, there is the problem of so-called exporters, who perform the process of filtering and breaching the value of waste. This requires good management to optimize the use of waste, and to finalize dumpster models to facilitate their collection in an organized manner that achieves environmental cleanliness and guarantees the total amount of waste.

What is the likely scenario for a cooperation with Egypt?

- Egypt is a promising large market with a high population density and many successful opportunities to increase the added value of the waste that can be retrieved, especially with the spread of community awareness of the value of the waste and how to benefit from it. Tadweer Group focuses on recycling the waste in order to produce clean electricity, in addition to recycling waste items, as they are solutions that help achieve zero waste.

Do Tadweer Group focus on solid waste only, or does it address electronic, agricultural or medical waste?

- Solid waste is the highest chance of conducting waste sorting and recycling and catching rejected materials into electricity production. Agricultural waste also enables fertilizers and biofuels to be manufactured, so Tadweer activities will be carried out in these areas, as well as benefiting from recycled food oil and producing bio-fuel for airplanes. In the medical waste sector, it will be done through  cooperation with companies in this field.

Currently, opportunities are being studied to invest in waste, whether agricultural, industrial, solid or electronic. Within the framework of the COP 28 activities in Dubai, the UAE session launched the “Zero Waste” initiative.

What is the role of “Tadweer” in this initiative, and its impact on “Tadweer Group”?

- The Zero Waste Initiative is one of the most important achievements of “Tadweer Group” and is the result of cooperation with the UAE Ministry of Environment and under the patronage of the Cabinet. The initiative aims to establish a non-profit company with global participation from governments, institutions and individuals around the world.

They represent experts, technology owners and workers in the field of waste recycling to invite them to establish a global platform according to three main axes. The first axis represents conducting a preliminary study to measure the opportunities and capabilities achieved, considering that waste contributes about 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is higher than the aviation sector, which represents about 6% of emissions. The second axis represents developing a systematic plan for project locations in the most affected areas locally and globally. The third axis, which is the most important, determines the implementation of projects and plans that can be financed by banks to achieve investment, whether in the Arab region or East Asia and Africa.

It is an initiative in In total, the whole world has been helped to know where we stand in waste management through data and information, while identifying the areas with the highest emissions due to waste to help them financially and technically. Currently, “Tadweer Group” is focusing on working in the cooperation phase with governments in order to obtain information and data that support the infrastructure of projects and implementation plans.

What is the work's philosophy of the “Tadweer Group” circular economy platform?

“Tadweer” platform aims to activate the role of the waste sector’s contribution to the circular economy through several matters, such as encouraging the consumer to use recyclable materials, as well as rationalizing the consumption of single-use plastic bags, which the Environment Department in Abu Dhabi has launched an initiative to reduce their consumption in 2023. 

In addition to cooperating with partners to support initiatives that move towards the circular economy, in addition to raising awareness of preserving environmental resources and spreading the idea of ​​the importance of benefiting from them, as well as creating generations aware of the value of these matters.

How do you see the future of Tadweer Group in Egypt?

- We hope and are optimistic that the size of the resources in Egypt will support the opportunities for success.