UAE Plans to Burn Mountains of Trash After China Stops Importing Waste

  • Dubai is building massive $1.1 billion waste-to-energy plant
  • Shipping rubbish to other countries is becoming more difficult
Material bound for landfill at the Bee’ah facility in Sharjah, U.A.E.Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg
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The United Arab Emirates is building one of the world’s largest waste-to-energy plants to deal with its growing trash load.

Dubai is constructing a $1.1 billion facility that will burn garbage to generate power. A smaller plant -- the UAE’s first on a commercial scale -- will start operating this year in the emirate of Sharjah. Once two other projects in Abu Dhabi are finished, the country may incinerate almost two-thirds of the household waste it currently produces.