Bee’ah announced it has joined forces with PepsiCo to support the company’s commitment to collect and recycle the equivalent of 100 percent Aquafina plastic packaging produced in the UAE in 2021. The pledge is in line with the UAE’s goal to divert 75 percent of waste from the landfill and is part of PepsiCo’s ongoing goals to reduce, recycle and reinvent for a more sustainable food system. PepsiCo’s local bottling partner, Dubai Refreshment Company will support this ambitious goal.

As part of the partnership, Bee'ah will oversee the collection, transportation and recycling at their Material Recovery Facility (MRF) of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics. Bee’ah’s MRF is one of the largest producers of plastic recyclables in the Middle East with an annual capacity of over 600,000 tonnes, as per the statement.

The mass collection project will utilise the company’s far-reaching network of recyclables collection systems in strategic locations, communities, malls and more across Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai, to improve waste segregation and collection. Additionally, to ensure traceability, Bee’ah said it will leverage digital data capturing, weighing system, and GPS monitoring to track and report the progress of PepsiCo’s recyclables.

“As the Middle East’s sustainability pioneer, Bee’ah is leading the charge for a circular economy and zero-waste targets in the UAE and wider region. This partnership with PepsiCo addresses plastic pollution through Bee’ah’s holistic approach to integrated waste management, and we are proud to support companies in meeting their environmental, social and governance targets, while increasing the UAE’s waste diversion away from landfills," said HE Khaled Al Huraimel, Group CEO of Bee’ah.

“We are proud to be partnering with Bee’ah to meet our sustainability goals and work towards a brighter and better tomorrow for us all. We believe that there is an opportunity to change how the world produces, distributes, consumes, and disposes of foods and beverages, in order to achieve scalable and economically viable solutions,” said Aamer Sheikh, President and General Manager at PepsiCo - Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. “Creating a world where plastics need never become waste requires a shift from a linear to a circular economy approach. This means increasing recycling rates, increasing recycled content in packaging, and increasing the recyclability of packaging, enabling us to reuse packaging material rather than treating it as waste. The UAE is working towards a sustainable environment and infrastructure, and we’re committed to playing our part in realising this ambition through innovation, active partnerships and stakeholder engagement.”

To encourage consumers to actively participate, Bee’ah will also leverage its community recycling incentivisation programme – Bee’ah Rewards, which uses a blockchain-powered mobile app to track recyclers’ deposits of plastic bottles at any of the company’s collection points. The top Bee’ah Rewards recyclers stand a chance to win prizes every month, such as electronic gadgets, gift vouchers and more, said the company, adding that it will continue to raise awareness among UAE youth through Bee’ah School of Environment, an environmental education initiative which has reached over 250,000 students and 6,000 teachers in the UAE.