Bee'ah, the multi-disciplined, Sharjah-based waste management company and leading environmental consultancy is helping change attitudes and alter behaviour patterns towards everyday waste materials across the UAE through its Bee'ah Rewards programme. Plastic drinks bottles and aluminium cans are one of the most common forms of street litter, while in the home environment they are frequently thrown out with general household waste and end up going to landfill sites, rather than being recycled.  One of the ways Bee'ah is succeeding in ensuring that these materials contribute to the UAE's circular economy has been through its unique Bee'ah Rewards programme, that makes  use of innovative reverse vending machines. This highly visible corporate social responsibility initiative is measurably and demonstrably incentivizing citizens to make recycling part of their normal daily routine.

A reverse vending machine offers an automated recovery system and employs advanced technology to identify, sort, collect and process used plastic and aluminium drinks containers. Each time a drink can or plastic bottle is deposited into the machine, it prints out a receipt with a unique barcode. The depositor, having downloaded the Bee'ah app to their phone, can then scan the barcode to get direct entry into a monthly prize draw.

Bee'ah Rewards was launched on January 17 this year at the World Future Energy Summit, during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. Since then, Bee'ah Rewards winners have been selected at the beginning of each month through a random digital draw and announced via Bee'ah's social media platforms. As well as the luxury vacations to destinations including Japan and the Maldives, winners could receive other prizes ranging from Nespresso machines to iPhones, Talabat vouchers, GoPro HERO cameras, Platinum tickets to Reel Cinemas, and 'At The Top' fast track tickets for the Burj Khalifa.

Group CEO of Bee'ah, Khaled Al Huraimel said: "Bee'ah is investing heavily in promoting a circular economy within the UAE and this requires a change in the behaviours of citizens. By incentivizing them to recycle their waste materials through Bee'ah Rewards, we are also helping the UAE to make progress towards the recycling targets set out in Vision 2021. By that time, it is hoped that 75% of the nation's waste material will be diverted from landfill to be recycled or converted into energy through waste-to-energy schemes."

"In Sharjah, we are aiming even higher and hoping to reach a 100% diversion rate. Bee'ah Rewards is one of the principal pillars of our strategy to help achieve this and we are pleased to see the way in which our reverse vending machines are successfully contributing to our recycling goals."

The increase in recycling levels is helping move the UAE in the direction of a circular economy in which materials are not simply buried when they reach the end of their life but rather, reused, recycled, repurposed or, increasingly, turned into energy.

The reverse vending machines found in high footfall locations across Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the first of their kind in the Gulf region. Current locations in Sharjah include the American University of Sharjah, Dibba Al Hisn Municipality in the eastern region of Sharjah, and Al Qasba, while those in Dubai include the Dubai Marina Mall, Marina Walk and Terminals 1 and 3 of the Dubai International Airport; and in Abu Dhabi, the RVMs can be found at the Abu Dhabi COOP in Abu Dhabi Mall.

The growing presence of Bee'ah's reverse vending machines is yet another marker demonstrating how the UAE is home to world class cities which actively promote recycling as part of the duty and responsibility of every citizen. The initiative also aligns with UAE's Vision 2021, encouraging community engagement as the country transitions to a more sustainable economy.

Certainly, citizens appear to have embraced Bee'ah Rewards with enormous enthusiasm: while the number of participants was 890 in the first month, the average monthly participation now is 20,000. That's an increase of well over 2000%. Yet Bee'ah wishes to go much further, believing that it should be possible to increase that figure exponentially. By taking reverse vending machines to locations outside the UAE's bigger cities the company believes it will succeed in spreading the word about its green activities, contributing to the on-going process of significantly increasing the UAE's overall recycling rate.

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