The Sustainable City in Dubai, the first fully sustainable development in the region, announced a new community initiative to eliminate plastic pollution and divert single-use plastic waste from landfills.
The ‘plastic for fabric’ campaign encourages residents of Dubai’s eco-conscious community to collect and convert their single-use plastic to make reusable shopping bags, WAM reported.
This has a double purpose – to reduce waste and to support the nationwide tariff on single-use plastic bags that will be introduced on July 1, 2022.
The initiative is in line with ‘Dubai Can’, launched by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, to eliminate single-use plastic bottles.
The Sustainable City’s ‘plastic for fabric’ bags are made from 100 percent recycled PET plastic, collected by children living in the community, and Sanad Village, the community’s rehabilitation centre for autism and other related disorders.
Once collected, the plastic is sent for recycling and converted into fabric shopping bags.
The bags are then distributed in collection points around the community and are going to be circulated for all The Sustainable City deliveries from Zoom Supermarket.
Salah Habib, chief executive officer of Diamond Developers, said the company was committed to supporting the national target to completely ban all disposable bags in the UAE by 2024.
“To date, we have already successfully eliminated all kinds of single-use plastic from restaurants in The Sustainable City and now, working closely with our partners, we are phasing out plastic bags,” he said.
Follow us on
