A panel discussion organised by Emirates Environmental Group at Dubai’s Modul University on how to reduce food waste, entitled ‘Zero Waste: Food for Thought?’ debated on a key finding that hotels and restaurants are wasting a lot of food by displaying a huge amount of food for their guests. The average UAE resident produces 2.7 kilograms of waste per day, according to Dubai Carbon, both food and packaging. It is estimated about Dhs13 billion worth of food is wasted by businesses and consumers in the country.
Nancy Nouaimeh, Abela & Co, who took part in the panel discussion said, “The pressure that staff in hotels, restaurants and malls are under to provide vast quantities of food is a huge problem for the region. Service staff are afraid that if they run out of food it will reflect badly on them. They are feeling stress from the pressure to provide plenty of food, it is sometimes the case they are afraid of possibly ruining someone’s day if they run out.”
“We need to encourage people to control their portions. It is about taste not waste, we cannot continue to allow so much food to be left over,” she further added.
Fatima Ahmed Abdullah Al Harmoudi, another fellow panel member from Abu Dhabi Centre for Waste Management (Tadweer) said, “It is common to see partially consumed foods in malls and restaurants. We have to change the culture and encourage people to take only what they can eat.”
Speaking at the panel discussion, Eng. Naji Alradhi, waste management and treatment expert at the Dubai Municipality (DM), said in 2013, the emirate produced 2.8 million tonnes of waste and the landfill space back then was 124,000 sqm.
“By 2050 we will have 273 million tonnes of waste that needs to be landfilled,” he said.
“Dubai is small though and a lot of land is restricted as airspace. Birds are attracted to landfills because of the waste and that could cause a serious accident if it is too close to the airport.”
Alradhi underlined the need for meeting the challenges head-on and called for substantial reduction in food loss and organic waste. He added that Dubai Municipality is targeting by 2021 a 75 per cent waste diversion by developing the waste sorting facilities and by 2030, there should be complete waste treatment (98%) through advanced techniques such as MBT (mechanical biological treatment facilities) and environment-friendly incinerations.