Under the patronage of His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan Mabarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Tolerance, Dubai Industrial Park inaugurated the official opening of the world’s largest integrated electric and electronic waste (e-waste) recycling facility ‘The Recycling Hub’ by Enviroserve.

The special launch event was attended by Sheikh Mohammed bin Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, His Excellency Engineer Saif Mohamed AlShara, Assistant Undersecretary for the Sustainable Communities Sector at the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, Abdulla Belhoul, Chief Commercial Officer of TECOM Group, and Saud Abu Al-Shawareb, Managing Director of Dubai Industrial Park, among a host of distinguished guests from industry leaders and business partners, and representatives from the government, business and media.

Stuart Fleming, Group CEO of Enviroserve welcomed the distinguished guests and visitors.

Facility

The guests toured the state-of-the-art 280,000 square-foot e-waste recycling plant, which is the world’s largest integrated facility that processes WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment), IT asset disposition (ITAD), refrigerant gas, and specialised waste.

The facility, which features state-of-the-art Swiss technology that surpasses strict EU Standards for e-waste recycling, will accept all types of end-of-life electric and electronic equipment.

The Recycling Hub has a processing capacity of 100,000 tonnes of total integrated waste per year, of which 39,000 tonnes is e-waste. The facility can process the entire range of WEEE from consumer and industrial to commercial and military. These include air conditioners, batteries, computers, household appliances, mobile phones, and even military avionics, to name a few. The integrated facility will also recycle specialised waste material such as aerosol cans, light bulbs, and FMCG products, and is currently the only dedicated refrigerant gas reclaim facility in the UAE.

The recycling facility’s mechanical separation process is chemical-free with industrial air filtration, allowing for a 96% recovery rate with zero air and liquid emissions. To put things into perspective, this means 38,000,000 kilograms of e-waste will be kept out landfills each year.

During the event, Saud Abu Al-Shawareb, Managing Director at Dubai Industrial Park, said: “The launch of The Recycling Hub at Dubai Industrial Park is a reflection of the UAE’s journey towards becoming a global platform that attracts innovative businesses and a successful model of the new green economy. We take pride in our partnership with Enviroserve, a key milestone in our mission to contribute to the development of an advanced industrial sector in the UAE that is focused on innovation and sustainable technology, and we look forward to the far-reaching positive impact that will extend to several regions in the world right from the heart of Dubai.”

Investment

The AED120 million project is backed by the Swiss Government Export Finance Agency and represents one of the largest foreign direct investments in the field of environmental management to date in the UAE. Enviroserve’s green recycling facility based in Dubai Industrial Park will service international e-waste recycling efforts across Africa, Middle East and Caucasus.

The Recycling Hub is set to benefit from Dubai’s strategic location, progressive policies, as well as the emirate’s intelligent infrastructure. In turn, Dubai Industrial Park, a member of TECOM Group, works to attract and enable the success of strategic business partners, by virtue of its mandate to elevate Dubai’s profile as a global destination for advanced manufacturing and innovative-focused industries.

Stuart Fleming, Group CEO of Enviroseve, said: “We are happy to launch our new e-waste recycling facility today and to be part of Dubai Industrial Park whose support was invaluable to us to turn this vision into a reality. Utilising innovative green technology in this iconic facility, we are confident this will be a true game-changer in electronic and specialised waste recycling for the UAE and the wider Middle East, Africa and Caucasus region. The Recycling Hub is the outcome of Enviroserve’s pioneering 15-year journey in the e-waste industry and we look forward to elevating the sustainability movement in the region.”

A centre of expertise for electronic waste management in the region, Enviroserve has already begun processing electronic waste for its partner EPSON. During The Recycling Hub’s launch, Enviroserve announced its partnership with Nespresso to recycle all of the coffee giant’s aluminium capsules and machines in the UAE. Also during the launch event, the company announced a regional partnership with Lenovo to recycling and refurbish the latter’s electronic products.

Enviroserve’s launch of its innovative landmark The Recycling Hub at Dubai Industrial Park comes at a time when every year, some 50 million tonnes of electronic and electrical waste is produced globally, of which only 20 per cent is formally recycled. According to a UN-sponsored project finding, the average UAE resident generates 17.2 kilograms of e-waste every year, most of which contains harmful toxins, such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury.