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UN official lauds managers of Kuwait’s tires recycling plant

November 16, 2021

The United Nations Team in Kuwait, led by Dr. Tarek ElSheikh, Representative of the United Nations Secretary General and Resident Coordinator in Kuwait and his accompanying delegation visited the tire recycling factory at Al-Salmi Area and discussed topics related to climate action, environment, waste management and sustainability during their visit.

Representative of the United Nations Secretary General and Resident Coordinator in Kuwait, Dr. Tarek ElSheikh addressed the team involved in the tire recycling project and highlighted to the enormous efforts that have been made by EPSCO and partners in cooperation with various governmental entities related to the tire recycling project in Rohya. Dr. ElSheikh also expressed the importance of working on sustainable projects related to waste management and recycling complex materials such as tires in order to reduce waste and boost the Kuwaiti economy in terms of exports and supporting sustainable industries, hoping that this step would be a beginning towards contributing to the State’s aspiration for a sustainable future and a symbol to represent perseverance and persistence to sustainable industries globally.

Dr. Tarek El-Sheikh also expressed his pride of the work of Kuwaiti women, Engineer Alaa Hasan, Founder and Representative of EPSCO and associates, especially in her and the team efforts towards supporting a sustainable environment in the State of Kuwait, which epitomizes Kuwait’s climate action commitment locally, regionally and globally.

In return, Engineer Alaa Hasan, Representative of EPSCO International said that the idea to establish a factory to recycle tires in Kuwait and specifically at Al-Salmi area came to her during seeing the big number of tires at South Saad Al-Abdullah Area and it was possible to use this area to house a big number of citizens and make use of the area. Approval of the establishment of a national project to create a recycling factory for tires (EPSCO) from the Council of Minister and the Environment Public Authority came at the end of 2017.

During her speech, She spoke about the process of transferring the tires from (Rohya) South Saad Al-Abdulla Area at the beginning, after cutting them and transferring the equivalence of 1 million and a hundred tires monthly according to the time plan provided by the Council of Ministers which was led by Minister of Commerce and other related agencies.

During the visit, she also indicated that tires were moved and stored according to a certain criteria that is in accordance to Kuwait Fire Force and Environment Public Authority in order to avoid fires.

She also explained that the work began in the construction of a tire plant in the Salmi Area over an area estimated at 20,000 square meters in 2019, consisting of a production line with a production capacity for recycling tires estimated at 1 million to 3 million tire annually, equivalent to 8300 tires per month. Knowing that the number of damaged tires annually in Kuwait ranges from 1.5 million to 2 million tires, which would lead to the production line at the plant and its capacity to solve the problem of tires and storing them significantly. The construction of the factory would lead to major and effective resolution of the problem of tires, the prevention of occupation of large areas for storage and final resolution of the tire problem and the fires that have caused numerous accidents over the previous years.

Construction of the plant and installation of production line were completed by the beginning of 2020, In addition, Engineer Alaa Hasan spoke about exports in 2021 to surrounding gulf countries, particularly Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Asia, specifically India.

With the success of this project many difficulties have been encountered during the establishment of the factory, The main obstacle was that that factor is in Area that has no source of water and electricity making the factory sources self-sufficient and preventing weighing the country with that responsibility. That obstacle was solved with the efforts and commitment to deliver water and electricity to the factory and the resumption of its work at the highest level.

Such projects are considered one of the most important in our current times, as the problem of waste management and recycling is with no doubt a way to achieve a goal that people all over the world hope to reach, which is to live in a clean environment free from waste and harmful emissions to the atmosphere and other resources.