Arab Gulf recycles paper, plastic, and cars!

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) does everything big, including recycling, and this week they’ve officially opened their first plant dedicated to recycling cars! An estimated 11,000 UAE vehicles get scrapped every month.

Some simply reach their shelf-life, others are abandoned at airport parking lots and city back streets by debt-ridden expatriates and native boys who no longer can pay for their luxury toys.

Now all that automotive litter will be put to better use: “This is the only facility today that can deal with end-of-life vehicles in the country. We encourage insurance companies, dealers and government departments to use this service,” said Najib Faris, chief commercial officer of Bee’ah, the plant operator.

Dumped cars will be manually dismantled, then sliced and diced to allow valuable metals to be salvaged, and plastics, tires, upholstery, cables and mechanical parts to be recycled or refurbished within the Bee’ah compound.  Previously, old clunkers were sold to scrap dealers, who stripped off spare parts and sold the car carcasses on the international market.