60% wastes to be sorted out to make World Cup carbon-neutral

Doha: Following Qatar's commitment to host the first carbon-neutral FIFA World Cup by cutting the emissions, the Ministry of Municipality is targeting at 60 percent of the total wastes generated during the World Cup to be sorted out for recycling, reusing and other purposes instead of going to the landfill.

The sorting of waste is critical to increasing the amount of waste that is recycled, as well as quality of recycled materials. From individual household input to huge commercial waste loads, everyone has a role to play in effectively sorting waste.

“Shouldering big responsibility towards mega sporting event, we have targeted that 60 percent of total wastes must be sorted out,” said Director of Waste Management and Recycling Department at the Ministry of Municipality, Eng. Hamad Al Bahr. Speaking to Qatar TV, he said sorting out 60 percent of wastes is significantly higher than the amounts sorted out during the previous World Cup. 

“The target is difficult. Therefore we formed a complete team to achieve the target. We made another target to transfer the remaining 40 percent wastes into energy,” said Al Bahr.

He said specialised teams have been formed from municipalities and the private sector to achieve both targets.

To a question about the resources of the Ministry of Municipality to achieve the targets set for sorting out waste, he said: “We have Middle East’s largest waste management centre. We gained pretty good experiences during 2021 FIFA Arab Cup, which provides solid ground to go ahead with our targets.”

He said that the Ministry also floated a number of tenders to engage the private sector in this endeavour. Al Bahr said the tenders include providing waste containers, cleaning workers and mobile waste transfer stations among others to serve the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.

“Following our strategy, we have provided two types of waste containers — green and gray — to collect recyclable and non-recyclable wastes separately from consumers,” said Al Bahr, urging people to dispose of their wastes accordingly.