Wearing a Winter Coat at 25° Celsius in Abu Dhabi

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.

Exploring Turkey on the Back of a Silver Elephant

Location: Izmir, Turkey

For many people, the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Turkey is holiday. This is no surprise when one takes into account that in 2010, Turkey attracted more than 28.6 million foreign tourists. Interestingly, looking at this country through some more green tinted glasses, what only few people know (frankly, I used to be one of them before I visited the country a couple of weeks ago) is that Turkey is one of the five major ship recycling nations in the world. In fact, there is a big ship breaking yard in the western town of Aliaga in Izmir where 341 ships experienced the end of their lives in 2011.

Another more economical but just as impressive fact is that the Turkish cement export ranks as the fourth biggest in the world with a production capacity of 66 million tons. Turkey trails only China, India and the U.S. in cement exports on a global scale. It may seem a little incoherent and random but the size of the Turkish cement sector may actually turn out to be a massive potential for the recycling industry, more specifically for producers of recycling and waste management equipment. There is a growing shift towards more independency and autonomy of Turkish cement producers from the supply of natural resources, mainly fossil fuels. This means, many producers are seriously thinking about using (more) RDF (refuse derived fuel) generated from waste that can replace a specific percentage of fossil fuels used in the combustion process. This is certainly a shift that is worth watching, which means I’ll probably be heading to Turkey more often.

Overall, besides the many things I have learned about the Turkish environmental or cement sector, there is one thing that I will remember most about my last trip to Turkey: riding a silver elephant. :-)

A Himalaya of Refrigerators

Location: Serbia

I just got back from my trip to Serbia, where I had never been before. It’s a place that is definitely worth seeing and that is, most certainly, worth eating at... Unfortunately, I could only stay for four days and most of the time I spent in a warehouse that was packed with old electronic appliances and that made me feel tiny leaning on a pile of stacked disused refrigerators. However, let’s not complain since, at the end of the day, I wasn’t there to exclusively enjoy the very good food that was on offer, but to help prepare a project that is due to be finished in May next year (2012). I am convinced that this will not have been my last trip to Serbia and I’m looking forward to returning and spending another few days in Serbia soon.

Surely it comes as no surprise when I tell you now that this project has got something to do with all the electronic scrap piling up in said warehouse and that it aims to gradually make these piles disappear and turn them into useful resources. Overall, the warehouse takes up an area of approximately 8,000 m² and provides enough storage space for numerous stacks of disused cooling units and old electric devices. The latter probably represents only a small percentage of the amount of e-waste generated in Serbia every year, which amounts to at least 30,000 tons (based on rough estimates of the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Serbia). However, this is not it. All over Serbia, there are still around 40,000 tons of leftover waste that is stored in various warehouses or disposed at landfills and wild landfills.

The warehouse is soon to accommodate a recycling plant that is designed to treat about 230,000 cooling units a year in a two-shift operation. It’s worth considering a chain of 240,000 refrigerators which consists of fridges with an average height of 1.30 metres. This chain can be expected to be 2,990 km long, which would equal the length of the Himalaya Mountains (approx. 3,000 km). Now that sounds very intimidating. In addition to this, electronic scrap is also sought to be processed inside the same plant. Just think about it, all that will be left of the towering fridges and electronic devices in the end are very small same-size material particles. This means there will really be no reason anymore for me to feel tiny or intimidated....

Background Info

After having submitted its application to the EU in 2009, Serbia is a potential candidate country for EU membership and may become an official candidate in March 2012 at the earliest. This also means that an increasing focus on an environmental strategy that complies with that of the EU is essential. Just think about it, one-third of all the regulations which are required to synchronize with European Union legislation fall under the environmental region. As a part of this integration process, the Republic of Serbia will receive important financial resources amounting to 600m Euros from the European Union between 2011 and 2013, as well as significantly higher financial resources in the long-term run.

Packing my suitcase

Usually the next step after a trip has been set up and after everything has been booked and arranged, is, more often than not, characterised by preparatory activities. As the departure date comes closer and closer, this preparation stage usually involves fetching the travel documents, notifying friends and family members or asking neighbours to look after one’s plants and, of course, packing one’s suitcase(s). In my case, don’t need to pack a suitcase. In fact, I tend to skip this step entirely, not only because there is no real need for me, a cuddly teddy bear, to prepare anything for my travels, but also because, in the majority of cases, I don’t know where I am going until I get there. What tends to happen is that I’ll spontaneously decide to accompany people I already know or people I have not met before to wherever they are going. My fellow travellers would then take me to different places in the world either by car, plane, train, ship, bicycle or foot and one day I might end up sweating in a desert whereas another day I might be freezing cold on top of a mountain. Wherever it is I’m going, I am convinced it’s going to be exciting and I’m looking forward to telling you all about my journey.

Meeting my fellow travellers

In case my fellow travellers have dropped me off somewhere and you find me, please pick me up, as I would happily join you on your trip. You can also leave me there and I’ll just wait until I meet someone that would like me to accompany them, or you can post me back home if you like. Just send me a message on this blog and I’ll give you my home address. If you decide to take me with you on your journey, it would be fantastic if you could take some pictures of me and email them to me. As soon as you’ve arrived back home and you would like me to continue my journey by myself, you can either pass me on to someone you know, you can drop me off somewhere where I am likely to be found or you can post me to my home address.