With rapid urban expansion across Abu Dhabi and the wider UAE, construction and demolition waste has become one of the most pressing material challenges in the built environment. Yet for Talal Tabbakh, General Manager of Al Dhafra Recycling Industries, the issue is not a lack of capacity or technology, but the absence of a fully integrated system that governs how waste is generated, handled, and recovered.

He argues that managing construction and demolition waste at scale begins long before the first truck arrives at a landfill or recycling facility. “We need rules and a clear way of doing things for construction and demolition waste,” he says, stressing that planning must be mandatory from the outset of any project.

He emphasizes that contractors should be required to submit a detailed waste management plan before work begins, including estimates of how much material will be diverted away from landfill. This planning stage, he believes, is critical to shaping outcomes on the ground. Equally important is enforcement during execution. He points to the need for a staged No Objection Certificate system, where compliance is verified at different phases of a project rather than only at completion. “This ensures contractors are actually following the rules throughout the project lifecycle,” he notes.

Tabbakh also stresses that accountability must be clearly distributed across the entire value chain. Contractors who generate waste, transporters who move it, and recyclers who process it must all operate within a transparent framework. Each actor, he says, must be responsible for sorting waste and reporting their activities accurately. Without this shared accountability, gaps inevitably emerge in the system.

Another critical pressure point is logistics. Illegal dumping, particularly by smaller operators, remains a challenge in rapidly growing urban areas. To address this, Tabbakh highlights the need for stronger monitoring systems, including vehicle tracking mechanisms that ensure waste is transported only to approved facilities. “We need to make sure waste is not just being dumped anywhere in the city,” he says, underlining the importance of traceability.

Design-stage integration

While regulatory frameworks are evolving, the question of design-stage integration remains more complex. Are developers in the UAE truly embedding material recovery into the early planning of buildings, or is it still an afterthought driven by compliance requirements?

Tabbakh observes that progress is uneven. Larger developers, particularly those involved in government-aligned or sustainability-focused projects, are increasingly incorporating recycling considerations at the design stage. In some cases, he notes, projects are already being planned with waste reduction strategies in mind, including approaches that limit construction waste from the outset.

However, he is clear that this is not yet the industry norm. For many developers, recycling is still something considered later in the process, often to meet regulatory requirements rather than as a core design principle. Even among more advanced projects, buildings are rarely designed with full circularity in mind, such as ease of disassembly or material reuse. “The construction industry is still evolving in this space, and most projects are not yet designed for recycling from the beginning,” he says.

This gap between intent and implementation is particularly significant when viewed alongside the potential of public infrastructure projects to lead market transformation. Tabbakh believes government-led developments can play a decisive role in shifting industry practice, not through policy statements alone, but through procurement specifications that directly influence construction behaviour.

In markets such as Abu Dhabi, where public projects account for a significant share of construction activity, he sees a unique opportunity to embed recycled material use into the system itself. Rather than treating recycled aggregates as an optional alternative, he argues they should be included as baseline requirements wherever technically feasible. Once consultants are required to design with recycled materials in mind, contractors naturally adapt their sourcing and execution strategies.

He also points to existing regulatory frameworks, including Abu Dhabi’s requirement for recycled material use in construction, as a strong foundation that can be expanded further. Projects such as Etihad Rail, which have already utilised large volumes of recycled aggregates supplied by Al Dhafra Recycling Industries, demonstrate what is possible when scale and specification align. Similar approaches are being seen in major developments by leading developers, where early-stage planning now includes material recovery considerations.

Supply chain credibility

At the same time, Tabbakh stresses the importance of supply chain credibility. Procuring recycled aggregates from certified facilities, he says, is essential to maintaining quality and building confidence in the market. Advanced recycling plants with strong quality certification systems and high operational standards help ensure that recycled materials can reliably replace virgin resources in infrastructure projects.

Readiness to meet future demands

He acknowledges that Abu Dhabi currently has strong construction and demolition recycling capacity, supported by regulatory requirements and established infrastructure. Contractors are already required to follow structured waste management plans, which ensures a significant portion of demolition material is directed to licensed recycling facilities. However, he warns that this capacity will come under increasing pressure in the coming years.

As older buildings across the UAE reach end-of-life stages and redevelopment accelerates, the volume of construction and demolition waste is expected to rise sharply. While the system is currently capable of managing existing flows, continuous investment and technological upgrading will be necessary to handle future demand. In his view, this also opens the door for broader private-sector participation, which could help stimulate innovation and prevent over-concentration in the market.

Enforcement, meanwhile, remains central to addressing illegal dumping. Tabbakh believes that prevention requires a combination of planning, monitoring, and penalties. Contractors must be required to submit waste management plans along with regular reporting. Waste segregation at source must be standard practice. Only licensed transporters should be allowed to move construction waste, with monitoring systems in place to track loading and unloading. Regular inspections, combined with meaningful penalties, are essential to deter violations. At the same time, he argues that the system must also provide practical alternatives, such as mobile recycling solutions on site, so that compliance is both feasible and efficient.

Ultimately, however, Tabbakh asserts the most important shift is philosophical. "Achieving zero construction and demolition waste to landfill in the UAE, is not a question of technology but of system design. The tools already exist. The challenge lies in aligning regulation, market demand, pricing structures, and industry behaviour into a coherent framework."

Segregation at source, predictable demand for recycled materials, landfill pricing that reflects true environmental cost, transparent data systems, and a cultural shift in how the industry views waste are all essential components of that transition. “The mindset has to evolve,” he says. “Waste must be seen as a resource stream, not something to discard.”

He is confident that with the UAE’s centralized planning capacity and regulatory agility, the transition is achievable. It will not happen overnight, he notes, but with phased implementation over the next five to ten years, a zero-landfill future for construction and demolition waste is entirely within reach.