· The initiative will help reduce the volume electronic waste

· Over 235,000 bottles and cans deposited for recycling last weekend

Doha, Qatar –21 March 2023: As part of its commitment to reduce the volume of waste sent to the landfills and preserve the environment for future generations, Al Meera Consumer Goods Company (Q.P.S.C.) has collaborated with Seashore Recycling and Sustainability and launched the first dedicated electronics recycling station in celebration of this year’s Global Recycling Day.

Celebrated every year on March 18, Global Recycling Day is an annual event that aims to raise awareness of the importance of recycling and encourage people to take action to reduce waste and protect the environment. The day brings together individuals, organizations, and governments from around the world to promote sustainable practices and highlight the benefits of recycling.

During the celebration this year, Al Meera will unveil the dedicated electronics recycling station as a pilot project in Al Meera Legtaifiya branch parking lot with plans to expand such initiatives to other branches across the country. The project is part of Al Meera’s ongoing sustainability initiatives to ensure that its operations and services are environment friendly in line with its efforts to translate the sustainability pillar of the Qatar National Vision 2030 into action.

The electronics recycling initiative will help reduce the volume electronic waste and combat its impacts and hazardous effects on the environment.

Also, in celebration of Global Recycling Day, Al Meera rewarded its members with five times Meera Rewards points when recycling during this weekend via any of their reverse vending machines across 20 branches. This serves as an encouragement to members of the community to recycle and reduce plastic and aluminum waste. As a result, customers have recycled 238,372 plastic bottles and aluminum cans during the past weekend and Al Meera has given away approximately QR24,000 worth of points to those customers.

As a reliable local corporate entity, Al Meera has initiated several campaigns to spread the community awareness of the best green practices and the importance of environmental sustainability in line with its Corporate Social Responsibility strategy. These include promoting reusable bags and green checkout counters instead of single-use plastic bags, introduction of reverse vending machines to recycle plastic bottles and aluminum cans, paper recycling, beach cleanups with universities and government entities, battery recycling initiative, and the award-winning campaign “The Truth Bottle” which raised awareness on excess water consumption.

Commenting on the initiative, Al Meera said:

“At Al Meera, we adopt a vision with the main objective to enhance the overall well-being of community members through a modern and convenient shopping experience, to establish the foundations for a more sustainable future and harness our resources to contribute to preserving the environment, in a way that motivates all segments of society, whether companies or individuals, to play their role so that we all enjoy a healthy and safe environment. We will continue to lead in developing ideas that will help in achieving the sustainability objectives of the Qatar National Vision 2030.”

Commenting on the initiative, Seashore Recycling said:

“The E-waste Recycling Station launched by Al Meera and Seashore Recycling and Sustainability will enable public to discard their old and damaged electronics for recycling at ease.

On this Global Recycling Day, Seashore Recycling is happy to be cultivating the culture of recycling alongside Al Meera by initiating this E-waste Recycling program and look forward to opening more stations in other branches making E-waste recycling accessible to more people in future.”

The Station will accept all types of electronic waste including but not limited to small and large appliances, computers and telecommunication equipment, medical devices, and more. Through the electronics recycling process, the material collected is sorted out and categorized into groups such as glass, metals, plastics, aluminum, gold and silver, and forwarded to markets for use as raw materials in manufacturing processes.

Al Meera continues to collaborate with other government and private institutions in the country to promote the importance of reuse and recycling to keep the community clean and safe.

As part of its efforts to reduce the harmful effects of pollution on the environment and conserve it for the next generations, Al Meera takes the lead in introducing initiatives that include raising public awareness.