Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Managing Director of Eldan Recycling, Toni Reftman.
[Article from ScrapBook Spring 2011]
Development generate waste
The fast construction growth, an increasing manufacturing base and a booming service sector, has also opened up new opportunities for the recycling industry. Inquiries to Eldan Recycling show that many players in the region have realized that waste is not worthless. “Since the middle of the 2000’s we have noticed a fast increase in requests from the United Arab Emirates” says Henning Nørgaard, Territory Manager at Eldan. “In 2004 we sold our first tyre recycling plant to the region. Since then we have sold plants and single machines for recycling of e.g. UBCs (Used Beverage Cans in aluminium), cable and tyres. We also see a growing interest for aluminium and WEEE recycling. The United Arab Emirates is definitely one of the most interesting regions planning ahead.”
Environmental thinking
The United Arab Emirates is not just expanding fast they are also a world leader in adapting new technologies, and ideas. In January this year 26,000 world leaders, international policy makers, industry leaders, investors, experts, journalists and other interested parties was brought together at the annual meeting for the renewable energy and environment industry - World Future Energy Summit “WFES 2011” in Abu Dhabi. This summit was founded in 2008, and has already become one of the main environmental events of the year. Since the beginning Eldan has co-exhibited with Ferrostaal AG, our agent in the region. “The United Arab Emirates is expanding faster than any other area in the world. If you want to know the latest, and be visible among the players on the cutting edge, you have to exhibit at the World Future Energy Summit” says Ulrika Lindgren, Marketing Manager at Eldan.
The summit is also frequently visited by royalty worldwide. This year the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden was specially invited to the summit. The introduction speeches were held by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari. They were followed by the Crown Princess Victoria who held an acclaimed speech where the importance of everyone taking responsibility for the future was pointed out, in particular regarding energy and energy consumption – “reality has caught up with us”. The royal attendance at World Future Energy Summit is not just a sign of the environmental awareness in Scandinavia, but also the importance of the United Arab Emirates as an influential region.
Future of the future
Eldan has already delivered several complete recycling plants for the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan and is working on new complete plants in Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
Recycling of cable scrap is an interesting industry for the region, Eldan has existing plants in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and recently installed a cable plant with a capacity of 2.5 ton per production hour, in the UAE.
Aluminium recycling is also starting to break through, and our equipment caters to the needs of aluminium recyclers in the region and we are also in the final stages of selling complete WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) recycling plants in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
The region has developed remarkably fast, yet it is evident that it is not saturated and done. “The continued development in the region and the increasing awareness for environmental thinking can go various directions” says Henning. “The collecting and sorting of household and industry waste could be organized and expanded. There are also further possibilities within recycling and recovery of the valuable parts of waste. For many years there has been a focus on recovering the copper from cable, and unfortunately the aluminium has ended up in the shadows. There are many reasons for recycling tyres – both commercial and environmental. Finally “urban mining” is about to get its breakthrough within WEEE recycling.”
The Middle East region has already seen the initiatives for an intelligent waste management system with Abu Dhabi taking the lead. “These initiatives maintain the feeling that the future generation of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries has an environment without large landfills and dump yards of wastes and various scrap” says Rajesh Sivarajan, former Sales Manager at Ferrostaal Dubai office, the responsible agent for Eldan in the Middle East. ” We have seen many new projects already completed and are looking forward to many new projects for a proper waste recycling system.”
The future is looking very bright for recycling in the region, and Eldan is looking forward to continue the leading position in supplying plants and machinery where the equipment need to handle the hardest environment of scrap recycling.
