Raising waste management awareness vital in Kingdom

The 5th Edition Waste Management & Recycling Summit 2015 brought by Nispana, is taking place in the Le Meridian Hotel, Jeddah, on Oct. 11-12, 2015.

This year summit is focusing on moving Saudi Arabia to have more sustainable and waste-free future.

It will give the chance for the attendees to learn more about the importance of having waste management system, as well as, provide them with the needed information about the types of waste and the process of the recycling.

On the first day, the conference sessions discussed several vital topics such as the waste of segregation, collection from individual or community bins and its transportation and disposal.

The speakers also discussed the challenges that many are facing when it comes to managing, treating, transporting and recycling high waste generation growth with the need for reduction in the ecological footprint.  The concerns with pathological, infectious, radioactive and pharmaceutical wastes and the need for proper treatment before disposal were one of the topics that were tackled in the summit.

On Sunday, they also talked about the regulations, modeling and structure involved in healthcare waste management, handling and transportation of medical waste labeling, packaging and safe disposal of hazardous and radioactive medical waste after treatment. The harmful effects of untreated chemical wastes on the environment and living beings exposed to them was also a topic in this summit.

Cluster Leader Environment – Greater Middle East and Africa of Tetra Pak, Rodney Reynders, told his company’s participating in this summit is important because currently there is not any dedicated recycling plant in Saudi Arabia.

He said “what is equally important really at this particular summit is to create a winner with other waste management companies and collection companies that we need them to know if cartons can be recycled, how can we collect these cartons from the marketplace. Already after my presentation of this morning, some of the companies came to me and say that they are in the waste collection business and they will support any initiative once we get a recycling plant running in the region.”

He added that the reason of him and his company being in such a summit is to create awareness about what  they been globally but then focus a little bit specifically in Saudi Arabia to say  that Tetra Pak has a keen interest in the West that has been generated in cartons and it is the company responsibility to insure that cartons cans are all been recycled in this region.

Adviser to the Director General of Occupational and Environmental Health Department in Ministry of Health, Ammer Ahmed, said “ we are participating in this very important summit with special emphasis on medical waste as you know improper treatment of medical waste carry a high risk to the community, to the health-ware workers, so our goal to protect them from the medical waste risk inside and outside the hospital.”

He illustrated that 80 percent of the waste that is generated in health care is solid waste, whereas, 20 percent is medical waste. Medical waste could be produced in many types such as, sharp waste, radioactive waste, and chemical waste. Hospitals use color coding system in separation of such a kind of waste. There are separated containers for each type.

Ahmed explained that in order to succeed in any program or project, one should have good awareness plan, so having awareness about dealing with medical waste and train the worker is a vital step.

“This summit is very important because all the governmental bodies  that are responsible about recycle waste are in this workshop. So hopefully, this summit will come up with more recommendations that will be adopt with different ministries,” he added.

Adviser to Deputy Mayor in Makkah Municipality, Dr. Akram Hassan, Deputy Director of Environmental and Occupational Health in Jeddah, Dr. Ali Ahmed Theban, General Manager, Operation & Maintenance, Royal Commission for Jubail, Eng.Sultan A. Alkhuraissi, are some of the summit speakers.