United Arab Emirates: Emirates Global Aluminium, the biggest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, today partnered with social enterprise Nadeera to launch an innovative recycling solution in communities near EGA’s plant in Jebel Ali.

Yalla Return, developed by Nadeera, is an innovative platform to promote effective recycling by consumers. The programme uses technology as a community engagement tool to encourage and incentivise recycling through a mobile application that is linked to technology-enabled waste collection bins. The programme will now be rolled out to some 4,000 households near Jebel Ali site.

Recycling aluminium takes 95 per cent less energy than making new metal, generating a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions. Last year, EGA announced the start of construction of the UAE’s largest aluminium recycling plant.

EGA spearheaded the development of an Aluminium Recycling Coalition with beverage can-makers, beverage producers and waste management companies to improve the recycling rate of aluminium cans in the UAE. Some 660 million beverage cans are consumed in the UAE each year, and only around a third are currently recycled.

Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, Chief Executive Officer of Emirates Global Aluminium, said: “Aluminium is an essential material for human progress, and too much is still thrown away including in communities that live right next to EGA’s plants. Nadeera will help us create more awareness on the importance of recycling among our neighbours, and I am pleased that this partnership means we are extending our cooperation with them.”

Nadeera was a finalist in the first season of EGA Ramp-up, the company’s corporate social responsibility programme to support entrepreneurship as a further contribution to UAE economic growth.

EGA supports communities near its operations in Dubai and Abu Dhabi through corporate social responsibility programmes, including sports tournaments, community clean-up drives and recruitment campaigns. EGA operates a hotline for members of neighbouring communities to contact the company with any comments or concerns.

Contacts at EGA:
Simon Buerk
sbuerk@ega.ae

About EGA

Since 1975, when it was founded as Dubai Aluminium by His Highness Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Global Aluminium has been innovating aluminium to make modern life possible.

Today EGA is the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer and the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil and gas industry.

EGA is equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai. It is the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates.

EGA is an integrated aluminium producer, with operations from bauxite mining to the production of cast primary aluminium. EGA operates aluminium smelters in Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah, an alumina refinery in Al Taweelah and a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in the Republic of Guinea.

EGA’s aluminium is the second largest made-in-the UAE export after oil and gas. In 2022, EGA sold 2.72 million tonnes of cast metal. EGA is the only UAE producer and makes the UAE the fifth largest aluminium producing nation in the world.

EGA has more than 400 customers in over 50 countries. In 2022, value-added products accounted for 78 per cent of EGA’s cast metal sales.

EGA’s aluminium is primarily used in the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace and electronics industries.

Around 10 per cent of EGA’s aluminium production is sold in the UAE to around 26 downstream aluminium companies that make products with EGA’s aluminium. The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports almost 48,000 jobs. EGA itself employs around 6,800 of these people including more than 1,200 UAE Nationals.

EGA has focused on technology development for over 30 years. EGA has used its own technology for every smelter expansion since the 1990s and has retrofitted all its older production lines. In 2016 EGA became the first UAE industrial company to licence its core industrial process technology internationally.

As a corporate citizen of the UAE, EGA aspires in all its operations to be measured amongst the world’s leading metals and mining companies in meeting its environmental and social responsibilities. In 2017, EGA became the first Middle East headquartered company to join the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative, a global programme to foster greater sustainability and transparency in the aluminium industry. In 2019, EGA’s Al Taweelah site became the first in the Middle East to receive certification from ASI for its sustainability practices and performance. EGA’s Jebel Ali site was certified in 2021. EGA’s bauxite mining subsidiary, Guinea Alumina Corporation, achieved the first ASI certification in Guinea in 2023. Al Taweelah alumina refinery was certified later in 2023, with the result that EGA now has all of its global operations certified to the aluminium industry’s internationally recognised standard for environmental and social performance and governance.

In 2021, EGA began production of CelestiAL solar aluminium, produced with solar power from the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park on the outskirts of Dubai. EGA is the first company in the world to make aluminium commercially using the power of the sun. 

EGA was formed in 2014 through the merger of Dubai Aluminium and Emirates Aluminium.

EGA’s Jebel Ali aluminium smelter began production as DUBAL in 1979. At almost five square kilometres, this site is five times bigger than Dubai Mall.

EMAL started production in 2009 and its Al Taweelah aluminium smelter was the largest single-site aluminium smelter in the world when completed. EGA’s Al Taweelah site is five times bigger than Al Maryah Island at six square kilometres.

EGA has its own power stations at both sites, producing electricity to meet its needs. EGA’s electricity generation capacity is 6,474 megawatts, making EGA the third largest electricity generator in the UAE after the Dubai and Abu Dhabi utilities. EGA also produces water through desalination units at its power plants.

EGA began production at Al Taweelah alumina refinery in April 2019. EGA’s alumina refinery is the first in the UAE and only the second in the Middle East. The project reduces the UAE’s dependence on imported alumina and supplies over 45 per cent of EGA’s needs.

Bauxite exports from Guinea Alumina Corporation, EGA’s wholly-owned subsidiary in Guinea, began in August 2019. The GAC project was one of the largest greenfield investments in Guinea in over 40 years.

For more information on EGA please visit www.ega.ae

About Nadeera:

Nadeera, an ADQ portfolio company, is a social impact organization committed to solving social problems, particularly waste mismanagement. Their digital recycling solution, Yalla Return, empowers communities to recycle effectively and be rewarded for their efforts, contributing to a more sustainable and circular approach to waste management.