It's not all trash in your garbage bag

Your garbage is valuable! So reduce, reuse and recycle. Apart from being eco-friendly you could also save some dirhams.

The approximate value of disposed items in one garbage bag is about Dh1.5, according to Jeremy Byatt, Director of Environmental Responsibility or Bee’ah, Sharjah Environment Company.

A whopping 2.5 million kgs of waste are produced daily in Sharjah alone by about 1.1 million inhabitants, Byatt told Emirates 24/7.

According to a Bee’ah study, the average daily production of waste per person is between 2.5kgs and 2.7kgs. "And this is one of the highest in the world."

"In the US the average waste produced per person is about 2kgs, in Canada little less than 2ks and in Beijing 850gs, he said.

People should be made aware of the importance of reducing waste. Recycling items must become second nature. And for it to become a hibit, such practices must be inculcated in a person early in life.

Bee'ah is working towards achieving this by co-ordinating with the Sharjah Educational Zone.

Beginning from the next academic year, Bee'ah will launch an educational programme targeting students from Grade 1 to 12 in 150 schools.

It plans to keep 5,000 bins in different shapes and sizes in classrooms.

Meanwhile, the firm has already started distributing tray bins to companies.

Bee'ah staff will collect these bins.

Byatt said: “We placed 1,500 units in different areas of the emirate last year. And most, but not all, bins contained the right content, namely paper, plastic and cans."

Bee’ah, a semi-government company established in 2007, has undertaken $100m (Dh367.3m) worth environmental and cleaning projects. 

It has 600 employees, who focus on helping people reduce waste disposal and increasing awareness about recycling.

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