The Sustainable City pledges to reduce consumption of single-use plastic

The Sustainable City, one of the fully operational sustainable communities in Dubai developed by Diamond Developers, has announced its goal to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic (SUP) within the community by 90% as early as next year.

The Sustainable City’s phase-out of SUP – a significant environmental polluter with a lasting ecological footprint – will target plastic bags, straws, balloons, cutlery, soda and water bottles and food packaging.

“While plastic is integral to lives, people often tend to forget that plastic pollution is also one of the most damaging to our ecosystem,” says Faris Saeed, CEO of Diamond Developers. “The Sustainable City’s goal to reduce single-use plastic consumption by 90% by 2020 underlines our commitment to promoting a sustainable environment and reducing our ecological footprint to secure a greener and cleaner nature for future generations. We believe it is important to act decisively – and now – to achieve our goals. By involving all our community members, this initiative supports the global efforts to combat climate change, the green vision of the UAE and the Dubai Plan 2021, and will help avoid plastic waste pollution by inspiring behavioural change.”

The Sustainable City has already taken significant steps to reduce single-use plastic. The use of SUP is banned in the offices of Diamond Developers and The Sustainable City Visitor Centre, and the company has tasked its research division, SEE Institute, to assist the commercial outlets in the phase-out by refusing and replacing the most prevalent SUPs.

As part of the roadmap, the first milestone is to achieve the reduction in the use of SUPs by 50% in the coming three months (by September 1, 2019). This will accelerate the journey towards achieving the goal of 90% reduction in SUP usage by January 1, 2020.

To support the community towards SUP phase-out, water fountains will be set up by The Sustainable City in common areas and the gym – which will eliminate the use of plastic water bottles and single-use cups. All restaurants will be requested to offer filtered water to their guests and remove plastic bottled water from their menus with some already commencing it.

Several community initiatives have been promoting awareness and engagement in SUP usage reduction. Among these is the Boomerang Bags project. Run by residents, the project produces shopping bags from used fabric, and encourages residents to stop using plastic shopping bags in favour of fabric bags.