Location: Abu Dhabi, VAE
Yes, winter has finally arrived in Germany and it’s not doing a very good job making a secret out of it. Last week when I was picked up by a colleague of mine to get to work early in the morning, I watched people desperately trying to scrape the ice off their windscreens and I couldn’t help but feeling a little bit relieved, since I had someone to take me to work in a car that was already warm and de-iced. Then I glanced at the display behind the steering wheel and my gaze froze for a second or two when I realised how freezing cold it really was. The display read -19°C. Brrrrrr - to say the least. When we arrived in work, I found out that one of my colleagues was in the middle of preparing everything for his short business trip to Abu Dhabi. He was set to leave the same day. “Abu Dhabi”, that’s all I thought and I dreamed of warm temperatures, a bright blue sky and an excessive amount of sunshine… Suddenly I was on a mission and in a moment when he wasn’t looking I snug up to one of the bags he would take and hid inside it.
You can’t imagine the surprise on his face when he opened his bag after we had landed in Abu Dhabi. As we left the airport, we experienced a temperature difference of 44°C (Germany – United Arab Emirates) and I suddenly felt that my winter coat was not quite the adequate wear for outside temperatures as high as 25°C. I guess polar bears and heat don't match...
One of our stops during the stay in Abu Dhabi was a transfer station for municipal solid waste and other mixed waste fractions. Considering the high temperatures and the large amount of waste piling up, the smell at the station was nearly unbearable, especially when you have a sensitive sense of smell like I do. At the transfer station, a percentage of the about 10 Million tons of waste which are annually generated in the emirate, is temporarily stored and then transferred to the end point of disposal. These end points of disposal tend to be dump and landfill sites which receive waste streams that consist of both household refuse and industrial as well as clinical and hazardous waste. However, this is gradually changing, as the Centre of Waste Management (CWM) in Abu Dhabi has now started to control and evaluate exiting landfill sites in order to decide about the closure of individual sites. At the same time, more and more companies or establishment that provide waste collection, transportation services as well as waste treatment and reprocessing plants were registered and licensed by the CWM. These measures are part of an overall strategy to divert 90 per cent of waste from landfill to recycling processes by 2018. This is an ambitious target and I’m excited to see whether and how it is going to be achieved.
When we arrived back in Germany, we found that the freezing cold winter temperatures had not magically vanished. Instead, we walked to the car in the cold and had to remove the ice from the windows which made me appreciate my warm winter coat.
