Dubai, UAE 12 November 2021: Residents of The Sustainable City Dubai, have embarked on a groundbreaking initiative to recycle food leftovers into compost. This community-driven project has already shown remarkable success, with hundreds of kilos of food waste collected for recycling in just one month.
Launched as a pilot project last month, the initiative has seen the collection of 630 kg of food scraps and 30 kg of sawdust, which are being composted on a designated plot within The Sustainable City.
The project was initiated by Ceylan Uren from Turkey and Lara Hussein from Lebanon, co-founders of The Waste Lab, a start-up specializing in composting food scraps.
British expatriate Ben McCabe, a resident of The Sustainable City and founder and CEO of McCabe + Partners, expressed his enthusiasm for the initiative. “Living in The Sustainable City, there’s a strong community ethos centered around sustainable living. We constantly seek ways to reduce waste, and The Waste Lab initiative is a fantastic example of this,” said McCabe.
The project involves collecting food scraps and waste from residents and converting it into compost on-site. This allows residents to observe the composting process and see the tangible benefits of their efforts. The resulting compost will be used for agricultural purposes within the community.
Ceylan Uren of The Waste Lab noted, “We conducted an incubation program with The Sustainable City for a month to help residents understand the composting process. The community’s support has been overwhelming, and we plan to expand the project to involve more residents.”
The trial phase included 34 villa residents and a food and beverage facility, all of whom volunteered to collect food scraps for recycling. Participants received guidelines on saving food waste and were provided with bins for collection, which are exchanged weekly.
While the initiative is currently free, there will be a subscription fee moving forward to cover the costs of fresh bins and collection services. McCabe commented, “I’m willing to pay a small fee for this project, knowing it contributes to a larger cause.”
The initiative has already demonstrated significant environmental benefits by reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills, thereby cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The compost produced will create fertile soil for agricultural use within The Sustainable City.
Uren concluded, “We are in discussions with The Sustainable City to organically scale up the project. With the continued support of the management and residents, we hope to increase the collection and production of compost, potentially expanding the initiative on a larger scale.”
