Can the UAE Build the World's Biggest Bioplastics Hub?

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
This is Mira Business FM, it's the Morning Drive. The UAE is pushing ahead with its clean manufacturing ambitions, as Abu Dhabi prepares to host what could become the world's largest bioplastics facility. But replacing plastic is only part of the story. Without better organic waste collection and recycling systems, even the most sustainable materials could fall short of their promise. Is the country's infrastructure ready to keep pace? Some of the questions we're going to be asking and talking about with Francois De Bie, who is the Chief Commercial Officer at Emirates Biotech, as the company developing the landmark bioplastics facility. It's in Abu Dhabi. Francois, thanks for joining us.

**Francois De Bie** (0:43)
Thank you so much for having us, Tim.

**Tim Elliott** (0:44)
You're very welcome. Good to have you here. I'm looking to get an idea of, I guess, the vision behind some massive new facility today. First of all, though, why is this the right moment to build one of the world's largest bioplastic facilities here in the UAE?

**Francois De Bie** (1:01)
Well, actually, we're not really just building it to build it. But if you read the news, the newspapers, media, et cetera, you can see and read about climate change and the need to do and take some action about the changing climate. And in addition, you can read about plastics pollution almost every day, polluting our oceans, polluting the land and the bioplastics facility we built. We will produce a product, a biopolymer, which will give some answers and will help to relieve some of this environmental pressure.

**Tim Elliott** (1:35)
Building one of the world's largest facilities of this kind is, as you point out there, the subtext is this is a real statement of intent.
What was the tipping point that made the UAE the ideal place, the ideal kind of manufacturing hub for this? Because this is sustainable production at real scale, right?

**Francois De Bie** (1:58)
Right, this is a big scale facility. This is a massive investment. This is not something which has done very often in the world before.
So why in the UAE? Well, first of all, the UAE is one of the very few countries which has a very, very clear ambition. Vision 2031, going to net zero, reducing the impact on climate. That's one of the big drivers behind. The second big driver is the UAE really wants to be seen globally as a leader on many, many areas. They want to be a leader in AI. They want to be a leader in architectural buildings, in tourism, but also in sustainability. There's a clear expression from the UAE in their strategy, pronounced by the Shaykh, is to be a leader in the world. And this facility, this production plant, will actually help to achieve that goal as well.

**Tim Elliott** (2:53)
Okay, and organic waste is sort of the missing piece in that sustainability, is in the conversation, isn't it?

**Francois De Bie** (2:59)
Yes, it actually is, and I'm glad you mention it. And although you can mention it in one sentence, it's kind of a missing piece. It's not a very easy story to explain, but I can take a little time to explain and try to explain briefly. So basically, if you have a biopolymer, a bioplastics, which is biodegradable and compostable, you want to use this benefit of it being biodegradable. And if you look at the total amount of waste that we produce every day, around 40% of it is organic waste. And typically this organic waste is in contact with plastic products because a lot of food is in plastic.
So then later on to recycle this organic waste to something valuable, which could be compost, and to recycle this plastics to something valuable, you would need to separate them again.
But in reality, it's much easier to just take the plastic and the organic waste and compost them together to make compost. But you need then, of course, a biodegradable polymer, a biodegradable plastics to facilitate this.

**Tim Elliott** (4:07)
Yeah, it's proper joined up thinking.

**Francois De Bie** (4:10)
Yes, it's joined up thinking. And this is a change in mindset, right? Because traditionally people are thinking, okay, we have the plastic waste and we need to separate the plastic waste from all the other waste, and then recycle the plastics mechanically to make new plastic products. That's actually proven to be very, very difficult and economically very, very challenging.
Therefore, what we propose is a much simpler solution. Just collect all your organic waste, which is 40% of all waste. Make sure that you are using biodegradable, compostable plastics to pack your food, and the plastic waste together with the food waste, organic waste, can be composted to yield very important compost.