"The Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi (EAD) estimates that residents dump about 1,532 tonnes of household rubbish daily. While some of the junk is recycled, lorries brimming with the city’s refuse unload a vast majority of the medical, chemical, household, industrial, construction and agricultural waste at six “dumpsites” around Abu Dhabi emirate.
“A dumpsite – that’s a technical term for a much softer type of landfill that isn’t engineered,” explained Olabode Esan, the director of public sanitation for Abu Dhabi Municipality. “There’s no containment, so the waste is just dumped in the site. But again, it’s dumped in a systematic manner, and covered with soil every day.”