Abu Dhabi: Illegal dumping of waste in Abu Dhabi is a concern as it poses a health and environmental hazard, a senior official said here on Tuesday.

?The [official] figures [on waste generation] do not begin to tell the whole story. They do not include large quantities of waste dumped at thousands of illegal sites scattered around the emirate, some of which have been in use for many years and are steadily growing in size, polluting the environment and threatening the health of our citizens,? said Fozeya Al Mahmoud, Director of Environmental Outreach at the Environment Agency- Abu Dhabi (EAD).

She said the increasing population and high-consuming society are contributing to Abu Dhabi?s growing waste problem. Official statistics in 2013 estimated that 11.9 million tonnes of solid waste were produced, which is equal to more than 32,482 tonnes every day. Around 57.8 per cent of the total waste was generated from Abu Dhabi region, compared with 22 per cent in Al Ain region and 20.2 per cent in the Western Region, the official said.

?Without urgent actions to improve the way we organise, resource and regulate our waste management activities, our waste problem will increase rapidly,? she said at a forum on ?Sustainable Waste Management for Organisations? organised by the EAD.

At the forum, the EAD released a guide book on waste management for organisations. Abu Dhabi aims to reduce the municipal solid waste by almost half to deal with the increasing waste generation, according to the guide book. Municipal solid waste will be reduced from 1.7 kilograms per capita per day to 0.9 kilograms per capita per day by 2020. Although only 28 per cent of medical and hazardous waste was treated properly in 2013, this will be increased to 100 per cent by 2020.

Samer Mohammad Al Hadhrami, Senior Supervisor in Facility Management at Abu Dhabi Municipality, said the municipality earned Dh263,035 during the past five years by recycling paper, bottles and cans. Recycling of one tonne of paper saves 17 trees, 28 cubic metres of water and 24 kilograms of carbon emissions. ?By this we have saved 8,999 trees and more than 12,000 kilograms of carbon emissions in five years.?

Linden Coppell, Head of Sustainability at Etihad Airways, said a new water purifier system that has done away with bottled water at the Etihad building is reducing 50 tonnes of carbon emission per annum. Etihad crew collect 4,000 bottles and 400 cans of aluminium bottles every day for recycling. Etihad Airways Services Catering facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport has strict and extensive procedures for segregating reusable and recyclable materials. On packaging, waste adds up to around 70 tonnes each month. This is bundled and sent for recycling, together with nearly 30 tonnes per month of inflight newspapers and magazines.

Manal Al Badawi, Environmental Specialist, Borouge, a leading provider of plastics solutions, said the company has adopted the policy of four R?s — reduce, reuse, recover and recycle.

Craig Halgreen, Vice-President, Corporate Sustainability at Borouge, commented: ?Currently, less than 10 per cent of plastics are recycled in the Gulf region and we are missing out on the opportunity to manufacture a broad range of useful products from recycled plastics. As for plastic bags, we should use plastic bags that are reusable and avoid one-time use of these bags even before we recycle them.?