Al Wakra Municipality's initiative to safely dispose of electronic waste has resulted in recycling nearly 800 tonnes of electronic waste, said an official.
Director of Al Wakra Municipality Eng Mohammed Hassan Al Nuaimi said that municipalities must play a supportive role in projects of the waste recycling industry.
He said that their roles are starting with their contribution to allocating the lands needed for these projects, supervising their compliance with technical and environmental standards, and then supporting their implementation within initiatives to spread the principles of safe disposal of waste among community members including school students.
Al Nuaimi was tabling a paper of Al Wakra Municipality entitled, “The Role of Municipalities in Achieving Sustainable Development” in a session of the Gulf Engineering Forum recently.
He said Qatar is witnessing a comprehensive and accelerated urban renaissance, which requires enhancing the quality of services provided by the service sector, including municipalities.
Al Nuaimi noted that what the world witnessed recently in terms of wars, conflicts and natural disasters caused tremendous pressure on natural resources and infrastructure, which requires institutions to work systematically in a holistic system that takes into account economic and social development in parallel with environmental development to ensure quality of life in cities.
He said Al Wakra Municipality established the Sustainable Development Projects Unit to implement a number of field and research initiatives and practices in the field of sustainable development in cooperation with the educational sector, the health sector and the private sector.
Al Nuaimi said there was also a strong push towards spreading awareness in this field among the students, the future generation and urging them to contribute in field, volunteer and research.
He said that the result of these efforts was the implementation of a number of research projects in the form of sustainable projects that were fully supported by private sector companies, including, but not limited to, the walkway for the elderly and people with special needs on Al Wakra Public Beach. Al Nuaimi said that Al Wakra Municipality signed the R18 initiative, which was launched by the Waste Recycling and Treatment Department in the Public Services Affairs Sector as part of the Zero Waste Campaign.
He said that the municipality adopts this methodology that seeks to create an advanced level of awareness about waste management, which requires doubling efforts in spreading awareness among members of society and focus on integrating school and university students in the implementation of this initiative.
