{"title":"Building a Deposit–Refund System (DRS) for Closed-Loop Recycling of Water Bottles in the United Arab Emirates","authors":"Wisam Abu Jadayil, Eman Aqil","doi":"10.3390/recycling8050076","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Water bottles are widely used in the Gulf countries. One estimate indicates that the water bottle usage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may reach up to 250 L of water per person annually. Generally, the water bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a recyclable material. Because of the non-availability of a powerful incentive system, these recyclable water bottles are often disposed of in landfills. This paper proposes a feasibility study of building a Deposit–Refund System (DRS) to encourage the closed-loop recycling of 0.5 L PET water bottles in the UAE waste disposal system. Water bottles are collected by a reverse vending machine (RVM) and recycled to produce PET bottles, and the proposed system will reward consumers with 0.04 United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED) per deposited water bottle. Additionally, this study calculates the cost of 100% virgin polyethylene terephthalate (vPET) and 60% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles based on the UAE population, data obtained from local water bottle companies, and existing research. Adopting this DRS will cut down on waste, protect the environment, improve the manufacturing process of water bottles, and boost the local economy.","PeriodicalId":36729,"journal":{"name":"Recycling","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.6000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Recycling","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/recycling8050076","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GREEN & SUSTAINABLE SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Water bottles are widely used in the Gulf countries. One estimate indicates that the water bottle usage in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) may reach up to 250 L of water per person annually. Generally, the water bottles are made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a recyclable material. Because of the non-availability of a powerful incentive system, these recyclable water bottles are often disposed of in landfills. This paper proposes a feasibility study of building a Deposit–Refund System (DRS) to encourage the closed-loop recycling of 0.5 L PET water bottles in the UAE waste disposal system. Water bottles are collected by a reverse vending machine (RVM) and recycled to produce PET bottles, and the proposed system will reward consumers with 0.04 United Arab Emirates Dirham (AED) per deposited water bottle. Additionally, this study calculates the cost of 100% virgin polyethylene terephthalate (vPET) and 60% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) bottles based on the UAE population, data obtained from local water bottle companies, and existing research. Adopting this DRS will cut down on waste, protect the environment, improve the manufacturing process of water bottles, and boost the local economy.
水瓶在海湾国家被广泛使用。一项估计表明,在阿拉伯联合酋长国(UAE),每人每年的水瓶使用量可能高达250升。一般来说,水瓶是由聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯(PET)制成的,这是一种可回收材料。由于缺乏强有力的激励机制,这些可回收水瓶往往被扔进垃圾填埋场。本文提出了在阿联酋垃圾处理系统中建立押金-退款系统(DRS)以鼓励0.5 L PET水瓶的闭环回收的可行性研究。水瓶由反向自动售货机(RVM)收集,并回收生产PET瓶,拟议的系统将奖励消费者每个存放的水瓶0.04阿联酋迪拉姆(AED)。此外,本研究根据阿联酋人口、从当地水瓶公司获得的数据和现有研究计算了100%纯聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯(vPET)和60%再生聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯(rPET)瓶的成本。采用这种DRS将减少浪费,保护环境,改善水瓶的制造过程,并促进当地经济。