The CEO of Saudi Arabia’s biggest waste company, Saudi Investment Recycling Company (SIRC), said that the Kingdom’s recycling market size could reach $18 billion as the sector remains underdeveloped, according to a report Arab News.
Saudi Arabia currently recycles less than 1 percent of its waste, SIRC CEO Ziyad Al-Shiha told the Saudi news site, Aleqtisadiyah.
SIRC is a unit of the Kingdom’s massive Public Investment Fund, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The report said that the Kingdom produces 45 million tons of waste, “half of which is from demolition and construction projects, a quarter from municipalities with the remainder from medical and industrial waste.” Al-Shiha said that construction waste can, for example, be re-used again after being crushed and turned into aggregates, he explained, instead of heading to the landfill.
Al-Shiha said the need for progress in developing the Saudi recycling sector begins with individual Saudis. Household waste separation is “a first step in efforts to develop an efficient recycling industry.”
The company is in the process of establishing partnerships with the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, the National Center for Waste Control and other bodies that will formulate possible regulations to boost the recycling sector.
