Emrill Services LLC, a facilities management company was set up in 2002 as a joint venture between Emaar Properties PJSC, the premier property developer in the Gulf, and Carillion PLC, a leading UK-based provider of facilities and property management services. Emrill (now with a recent 3rd partner Messrs Al Futtaim) is an ISO 9001:2000 accredited company offering integrated facilities management covering a wide range of activities which include cleaning, security, technical services, consultancy and management.

Carillion and its previous incarnation, Wimpey, have been operating in Dubai for more than thirty years and have long worked with Dulsco during those early years in different capacities including stevedoring operations and waste collection. “Dulsco, being a much older UAE established company, was well known to us before we tied up as Emrill, again with Dulsco for waste management services,” reports Ian B. Roberts, Director, Facilities Operations MCIOB of Emrill Services.

Waste management is one of the vital services that Emrill provides to its customers in several Emaar properties and in the Dubai Festival City of Al Futtaim. The company has about 2100 direct employees to serve its clients. “As we expand our client base to serve international banks, Silicon Oasis, Du and other service organisations in the UAE, we also subcontract a few of our special services like waste management, which we have awarded to Dulsco. They are one of our key service partners and we work closely with them because we use their technical expertise and knowledge to provide competent service to our customers,” explains Roberts.

Approximately 13,000 properties of Emaar including Emirates Living, Dubai Marina, Arabian Ranches, The Greens, Gold and Diamond Park, Emaar Towers, and others have recycling bins for plastic, glass and paper at their premises. The waste is collected weekly and taken to a recycling facility. Dulsco WMS collects household waste from many of these Emaar properties.

“We are happy working with Dulsco on waste management as they are professional in their work methodology. Operational problems, if any, are solved at a lower level where Dulsco staff is empowered by their Management to deal with such issues, rather than going up to higher managerial levels. We have a good working relationship and they also meet our safety regulations. We work well together according to the requirement of the clients: Examples such as arrangements for waste collection at night only for commercial parks or daytime only for villa communities.

Dulsco collection trucks are modern, quiet in use, efficient and meets our own and our clients' requirements to achieve a good level of service,” explains Roberts with satisfaction.

Emrill is looking ahead to meet the challenge of recycle demands and to reduce and manage and handle such waste efficiently and in an environmentally acceptable way in Dubai and the UAE. Roberts says, “We would like to continue work with Dulsco to meet that challenge in an organised and efficient way that has the least impact on the UAE environment. Landfills can no longer be considered the only method of waste management. As Dubai develops, we must have a system where recyclable waste is sorted, collected and sent for recycling or reuse and the rest is disposed efficiently.”

Waste collection systems are set to improve in this part of the world and new laws in environmentally friendly waste disposal are being drafted. In the UAE, environmental concerns are now growing very rapidly. Emrill hopes to be at the forefront together with Dulsco in projects that can incorporate a district waste collection system especially in New Dubai's high-rise building and residential complexes.