Waste unit expansion ‘to cost QR2bn’

By Joey Aguilar

Staff Reporter

The Qatar government is  evaluating the possibilities to either expand the waste management facility near Mesaieed or find a new place to treat domestic wastes, it is learnt.

The Domestic Solid Waste Management Centre (DSWMC), operated by Keppel Seghers, a Singaporean company, can handle about 2,300 of the total 2,700 tonnes of solid wastes the country is producing daily. It now operates at full capacity.

“Since the facility has reached its maximum capacity, most of the 400 tonnes of surplus wastes go to the landfill,”  said Stefan Kipp, regional director (Middle East and North Africa) at Keppel Seghers, while explaining that the government had been looking at various alternatives to solve the problem.

Keppel Seghers had submitted a proposal to expand the DSWMC based on its present technology. “This is under evaluation at the moment by the government,” said the senior official.

Kipp estimates that total waste production in Qatar is about 7,000 tonnes a day, roughly 70% is non–domestic such as construction and demolition materials. 

Between 2,700 to 2,800 tonnes come from household and the remainder comes from industrial and commercial wastes.

Echoing the need to expand the state-of-the-art facility, DSWMC general manager Oon Ee Heng noted that they had “re-engineered” their expansion proposal to 3,000 tonnes per day. This was based on the company’s report that wastes increase by about 7% every year.

“In 10 years, we are talking about 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes per day,” he said, adding that they had submitted the initial design to the government.

The estimated cost of the expansion could reach around QR2bn depending on the design and concept the government wants, said Heng. For every 500 tonnes of waste, about QR800mn is spent.

Kipp stressed that DSWMC is not a recycling plant but only separates the recyclable materials and stores it at the facility.

“We have considerable storage capacity, sufficient is always relative but for how long? Obviously we need to find at a certain point in time we will need a destination for all these materials,” he explained. “It is rather a definition that needs to be done by the government so we are just preparing the materials.”

While different approaches were available, Kipp said the government had a clear commitment to recycling which had a wide market, especially for metals such as steels, aluminum, papers and plastics.