As part of the Public Works Authority’s efforts to encourage creative initiatives, and its commitment to support the best practices in sustainability and environmental conservation, the Roads and Infrastructure Project in Al Kheesa North and East, Package 2, has recently implemented a new initiative to recycle food waste from the workers’ cafeteria and transform it into compost for soil. This is done by using the Eco Probe EP-25 machine, which uses Heat Resistant Thermophilic Bacteria for food waste composting.
In this context, Eng. Hamad Khamis Al-Bader, Ashghal’s Project Engineer in the Roads Projects Department’s Northern Areas Section, said “The authority spares no effort to support the best sustainability practices and green initiatives by engaging all stakeholders and competent staff from consultants, contractors and suppliers, in addition to workers and other staff. We encourage them to adopt positive environmental practices and to propose new, innovative solutions and methodologies to be implemented throughout the project phases.”
Al Bader added “Ashghal adopts efficient and innovative practices and initiatives and seeks to spread them and encourage others to use them. Once they prove to be beneficial and have positive impact on environment, safety, sustainability, or any other domain, Ashghal may obligate construction companies to implement these practices in their respective projects to reap their benefits, like preserving existing resources, reducing long-term costs, among others.”
The new initiative will bring several benefits. For example, the food waste disposed in the municipal landfill will be reduced, as it will be transformed into a useful resource that can be used for plants and green spaces. 0.75 ton of food waste will be transformed on a monthly basis, that is, 9 tons per year, which will cover the machine cost in its first year of operation.
This initiative will also reduce the carbon footprint for the project and the carbon emissions associated with the collection, transporting, processing and burial of food waste. For each 1 kg of food waste, there is more than 2.5 kg of CO2 emissions. However, with this initiative, CO2 emissions from food waste alone will be reduced annually by 22.5 tons, and 4.25 tons of CO2 emissions from transportation activities (assuming that 0.55 kg CO2 are emitted by kilometre based on a waste disposal truck moving at an average speed of 60 kmph.)
As for the Roads and Infrastructure Project in Al Kheesa North and East (Package 2), food waste travels a distance of 644 km/month in order to be dumped at the municipal landfill. Similarly, the total CO2 emissions reduced are 26.75 tons/year, which is equivalent to planting 160 trees per year, not to mention the additional costs of transporting and disposing that waste.
The Eco Probe EP-25 machine absorbs up to 25 kg of food waste per day working in 24-hour cycles to process and turn the food waste into organic compost, which is used for agricultural purposes around the site offices and in other landscaping and development works. In addition, part of this compost will be given to local residents and project staff who have private gardens for gardening purposes.
Coordination is currently underway with local entities, to make use of the generated compost on a wider scale, like public gardens and green spaces in general.