Tadweer Waste Treatment structure

Tadweer Waste Treatment was set up in 2004 as a joint venture with Dubai Municipality to meet the emirate’s urgent need for a solid waste sorting and recycling facility.

Although current figures are still being compiled, in 2007, Dubai Municipality treated more than 31 million tonnes of general solid waste, 83 million gallons of liquid waste and 347 tonnes of hazardous waste.

The joint venture is run on a build, own, operate, transfer (BOOT) scheme. Tadweer’s chairman, Faris Saeed, is also the chief executive officer and owner of Dubai-based real estate firm Diamond Developers. The firm employs some 500 staff.

Tadweer Waste Treatment operations

Tadweer’s main plant at Warsan can recycle up to 4,000 tonnes of solid waste per day (t/d). It is one of the first solid waste sorting plants to handle refuse from the entire emirate. The firm also recycles about 700 t/d of residential and commercial garden (green) waste.

The $136m facility, which became operational in March 2006, consists of six waste sorting and recycling lines covering an area of 1 square kilometre. In total, the plant treats 1.4 million tonnes of municipal waste a year.

The facility recycles waste to produce a range of raw materials for use in the manufacture of paper, plastics, metals and glass. Biological waste is also treated to produce compost. In 2009, an additional three sorting lines to wash and treat raw materials were added to process up to 80 t/d of waste.

End products include cardboard, plastic polyethylene terephthalate (PET), metals, organic materials, aluminium cans, glass, paper and newspaper.

For its compost production programme, Tadweer uses technology supplied and managed by Germany’s Kompost und Substrate Service (Kuss).

The green waste is placed in large compost vats, which are supplied with oxygen that produce high temperatures to eliminate bacteria, microbes and seeds contained in the plants, while preserving nutrients in the black soil that is produced. A single large compost bin requires about 2,000-4,000 kWh of electricity a year. The compost produced at Warsan is used for local agricultural, residential and commercial landscaping and domestic gardening purposes.

The plant also produces refuse-derived fuel (RDF). Municipal solid waste such as plastics and biodegradable waste is shredded and then treated in a steam-pressured autoclave. The RDF produced is used by the cement sector.

Power generation is another product of Tadweer’s waste management. Although still in its early stages, the firm claims to be able to produce up to 1,000 kWh of power by anaerobic digestion technology and generators using methane gas to process the waste.

Tadweer Waste Treatment ambitions

As a public-private partnership with the Dubai Municipality, Tadweer is not only concerned with increasing its profit margins. Its primary focus is the domestic market.

The company’s stated objectives are to change popular perceptions and educate Emiratis on the need to sort and manage waste produced in the UAE by means of awareness campaigns and education programmes. The waste management firm places its activities and objectives within the framework of the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015.

With these aims in mind, Tadweer unveiled plans in May to establish a Dubai-based college in collaboration with the University of California Davis (UCD) in the US. The proposed college will offer one of the first environmental programmes in the region. According to Saeed, a location in Dubai has already been selected and negotiations between UCD and the firm are in the final stages.

At its Warsan facility, Tadweer has the capacity to treat up to 79 per cent of the total waste it receives, while rejecting at least 21 per cent that ends up at landfill sites located at Al-Ghusais, Jebel Ali, Lehbab and Hatta.

As the level of municipal waste generated in Dubai continues to climb, Tadweer is aiming to boost the current levels of production to be able to handle up to 2.5 million t/y of waste.