JEDDAH — Experts at a scientific forum said over 170 cities and villages in the Kingdom produce more than 12 million tons of solid waste annually. The comments were made at King Abdulaziz University's 1st Scientific Forum for Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Tuesday. The forum was organized by the Center of Excellence in Economic Studies and the Faculty of Meteorology, Environment and Arid Land Agriculture. The Center of Excellence in Economic Studies Deputy director for Technical Affairs, Iqbal Mohammad Ibrahim Ismail, said: “More than 12 million tons of solid waste is a lot of waste, which can be recycled to produce raw materials such as aluminum, plastic, paper, cardboard, textiles, glass, minerals, wood, organic matter and construction waste. These materials can be used to produce new products and sell them in the local and regional markets. In turn, the country will spend less on imports, use the Kingdom's capacity for talented or untalented manual labor and lessen expensive and polluting demolition and ignition operations.” The Vice President for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, Adnan Zahid, said the university aims to contribute to the Kingdom's sustainable development by organizing forums that promote recycling by experts and researchers in the field. “This forum is the first of many more in the future. The forum aims to promote pollution-free environments by tackling issues of solid waste and other kinds of waste such as industrial, medical and electronic," he said. The forum included experts, academics and practitioners in the field from both the private and government sectors. The forum also hosted international guests to benefit from previous experiences and to be exposed to advances in the field. "It was very important to hear what government projects were planned or implemented already in relation to recycling waste. This way we can support the projects with academic research and link the projects with private sector companies to implement it,” said Zahid.
