Domestic waste will be recycled across Bahrain under a new scheme to reduce garbage and save energy, our sister newspaper, the Gulf Daily News reported.

It will be implemented in homes in Budaiya first and will include a garbage separation system, by dividing waste into paper and cardboard, plastic, metals, glass and packaging materials.

Households will be provided with different coloured rubbish bags, which will be collected by private companies.

It comes in line with the specialised coloured bins set up in commercial buildings to recycle paper, plastic bottles, metal cans and white and coloured glass.

The initiative is being spearheaded by the Northern Municipality and the Municipalities and Urban Planning Affairs Ministry, which have already signed agreements with garbage collecting companies.

According to the latest statistics, environmentalists say up to 75 per cent of domestic waste can be recycled.

"Recycling was introduced in commercial buildings like shopping centres, malls, private schools and some businesses, but it was never extended to include homes," said municipality director-general Yousif Al Ghatam, who is also the National Cleaning Committee chairman.

Effect

"Home wastes in Bahrain are of an alarming figure with 287,205 tonnes in 2007 and increased to 402,241 tonnes in 2009, which is an increase of 29 per cent and people can just imagine where that number has reached today by just adding 20 per cent to the 2009 figure.”

"The average solid waste per person is 1.5kg a day and that's high compared to Oman, where it is 0.6kg to 0.9kg, and European giant Germany where it is 1.1kg."

Al Ghatam said after the pilot phase in Budaiya, the scheme would be launched across the country.

"We have to teach people from a young age about the importance of recycling and its effects on the community and resources," he said.

"Even though there are coloured bins at schools, in homes people tend to just throw garbage into black bags that we provide without any sort of classification.”

"Coloured bags will be distributed to homes in Budaiya to ease classification into paper, plastic, metal and glass, which will help separate recyclable items from other garbage.”

"It will then be collected by a specialised company or companies that we will contract to handle collection responsibilities from homes."

He said awareness campaigns will also be rolled out to reach a wider audience and encourage more people to recycle. "We will have some awareness campaigns about the scheme's benefits and hopefully within a few months it will be turned into a lifestyle that immediately kicks in within communities as we enter a new phase in cleanliness," he added. – TradeArabia News Service