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A total of 39 organisations from various sectors took part in the ‘No Paper Day’ campaign in the country this year, said Meshal al-Shamari, director of Qatar Green Building Council (QGBC), yesterday. |
“Only a very small percentage of the total waste collected in the country is recycled,” he told Gulf Times, on the sidelines of an event on waste management.
‘No Paper Day’ is celebrated on the first Thursday of April every year throughout the world. Al-Shamari said: “Last year, 20 organisations had taken part in the campaign. They were able to reduce 73% of the paper use through different methods. All the companies used strategies such as limited printing, double sized printing, reusing papers as well as making use of the electronic versions of several documents.”
The official also explained that QGBC is in discussions with various ministries and other organisations on more effective methods of waste management. “Segregation of the waste is an important part of waste management which should start from home. Similarly, there must be improvement in transportation methods of waste as well as waste recycling plants.”
He said waste management is a big cycle.
“It needs the integration of many ministries and higher level officials. We need to educate the people on how to dispose waste and recycle them. At present some of the waste collected is segregated while only a little of them is recycled. Some of the waste is recycled for different purposes but still it is very low compared to the amount of waste collected in the country,” he added.
Neil Kirkpatrick, sustainability manager at Parsons Brinkerhoff, said the world must be concerned about the rising use of paper even in an advanced digital era.
He said: “The use of various paper based products such as toilet papers, bank notes, cheques, packaging materials, business cards and many more are on the rise. There must be efforts to raise awareness on these issues and we need to change the behaviour and learn how to live sustainably.”
Sami al-Shammari, IT and Telecom Manager at Oryx GTL, spoke about ‘Green Computing’ and said that there are various ways to reduce paper consumption using modern technology such as Auto Duplex print which puts restrictions on the number of copies to be printed. He also said that cloud computing is another advancement that saves a lot of energy.
The seminar had many experts from Qatar’s waste management industry to review the long-term sustainability objectives of the current waste management initiatives in the country.
Qatar has one of the highest per capita waste generation rates in the GCC due to limited awareness of waste management, lack of proper recycling facilities and the high rate of population growth.