KUWAIT: The Municipal Council's environment committee continued its landfill tour on Thursday, with a visit to the landfill at Mina Abdullah and the asbestos waste facility in at Shuaiba.

The tour is part of its efforts to take a closer look at the situation in landfills across the country and understand the disposal and recycling processes taking place. Thursday's visit was the committee's third since it embarked on the project, which aims to provide the government with the information needed to outline regulations for waste management in the country.

Head of the committee Aliaa Al-Farsi told KUNA that the council intends to re-use waste in these landfills to support the country's urban development plans. She added that the council should "seriously consider" converting waste into fertilizers or burning it in facilities to produce refuse-derived fuel (RDF). The fuel is made using the combustible components of garbage after removing inflammable materials, such as glass or metal.

Major retailers and car manufacturers in the United States are relying on waste-to-energy facilities to get out of landfills, according to a CNBC report. While the method is hailed as a source of greenhouse gas mitigation in the United States, European nations that have been incinerating waste for years might begin to reduce their dependance if they wanted to meet their environment goals, according to critics. Still, burning garbage can be made environmentally-friendly. A waste-to-energy facility quoted in CNBC's report cleans toxins out of its combustion gasses using an intense filtration process, leading to emissions far below US federal standards.

The committee has been exploring waste disposal strategies and visiting landfills since October 2022 to tackle the country's ever-growing waste problem. According to recent data from Kuwait's environment authority, the country spends 285 million dinars annually on waste collection and disposal, with 7500 tons of waste collected daily. Fifty percent of the country's waste is disposed of in poorly designed landfills.

The plan is to eventually come up with a national waste management strategy utilizing new technology and partnerships with the private sector. The committee first paid a visit to the Jahra landfill in October, followed by another November visit to the landfill located south of the seventh ring road. A joint committee made up of members from the environmental affairs committee and the legal and financial committee has met three times so far to discuss a draft ministerial decision on the topic. Farsi said the last meeting, held last week, primarily addressed defining terms related to the country's 2040 waste management strategy. - Agencies