Al Ain Municipality in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set up a dedicated website to project its unique environment-friendly waste management programme, Source Classified Waste Project. The project was launched earlier year on an experimental basis for two years in Al Ain's Al Khubaisi district that has some 2,000 houses and a population of 16,000. According to Abdullah Hassan Hamarain, Undersecretary of Al Ain Municipality and the Town Planning Department, the project is a very important move towards enhancing the image of the Oasis city, fast emerging as a tourist destination.

The web site can be accessed by logging on to www.efrez.com. The site includes an introduction to the waste project. With the following sections among those on the website, this is an interesting port of call for those who feel they have insufficient knowledge of what is happening with waste in parts of the Middle East.

The project, which is the first environment-friendly waste management programme of its kind in the UAE, aims at safeguarding the environment with public participation. The "Source Classified Waste Project" is based on comprehensive research and Al Ain Municipality has been using all the possible means to achieve the desired results. The people in Al Khubaisi are provided with red and green containers under this project.

They have been asked to sort their waste and put the recyclable material in the red container and organic waste into the green container. The Public Health Department at Al Ain Municipality has been providing the containers along with two plastic bags for each household in the area. The municipality has plans to expand the project in the next phase to cover the entire city of Al Ain, which has a population of 288,025, with a five per cent annual increase, according to the 1998 census.