Wiping out waste, du goes green

Who wouldn’t want to live in a cleaner, greener world? Everyone! With its new recycling campaign, du is leading the way to a greener way of life in the UAE.

In the UAE, Government authorities have implemented several schemes to tackle the issue of waste reduction and disposal, and recycling companies are doing their best to ensure that proper measures are taken to reduce, as much as possible, the environmental impact caused by waste.

But why leave it to them to clean up after us? Its inevitable that a company will produce waste, but du employees are taking steps to go green by increasing the amount of recycling they do.

du’s green initiatives include recycling all waste paper, which is done through a collaboration with local manufacturing plant, Union Paper Mills. Employees are also cutting down on the amount of paper used, printing, as far as possible, double-sided on every page, while other implementations within the company reduce paper consumption significantly. Bins are in place to collect non-hazardous waste, such as plastic, cans and glass, which are all taken for recycling, and a tie-up with HP Planet Partners programme sees all of du’s printer cartridges recycled.

These combined efforts have already made a difference. From January to June in 2011, du has recycled a total of 33,670 kilograms of waste, comprising of of 11,798 kilograms of corrugated cardboard, 250 kilograms of plastic, 226 kilograms of mixed recyclable waste, and a massive 21,396 kilograms of waste paper.

Recycling bins have been installed at each floor in du’s offices– one for plastic/bottles, which can be used to dispose of cans and paper cups, another for paper and the third one for general waste, for decomposable items such as food and tea bags.

“What many people don’t realise is how easy it is to be more environment friendly,” said Hala Badri, Executive Vice President, Brand and Communications, du. “We recognise that there is a need for us to do our part to help decrease the amount of waste going into landfills across the UAE, so we’re adopting several recycling schemes to ensure that we up our environment friendliness. You can make a significant positive impact through the smallest of things – recycling just one tonne of paper saves 17 trees, avoids enough garbage to fill two telephone booths, and uses less water and bleach than making a new paper would.”

She added, “We’re going green, and we’d like to encourage more people to do so, too, to create a cleaner, greener UAE.”