AJMAN – Her job requires her to spend much time working with different nationalities and different ways of thinking. She also visits sites to take some water samples and tests them in the lab in search of new ways to save the environment and to have green energy that helps society.
She is the only local girl at her workplace that requires her to deal with wastewater outdoors, having site visits under the sun and in high temperatures to learn and discover new things.
“I knew that all these challenges would be at the beginning only, and if I cannot go through them, how I would beat the coming ones?” Maitha Alajmani says. “The more I face difficulties, the more I would ask, search, read, observe and learn from my mistakes.”
Alajmani, 23, has worked for Ajman Sewerage as an environmental engineer for the third year. In her work journey, she discovers that environmental engineering is about different engineering sectors like electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineering. She deals with the labs to test water samples, maintenance, health, and safety.
Her job allowed her to work on one of the UAE’s most important green energy projects. There are three goals and future achievements of Ajman Sewerage: implementing new environmental projects, increasing the capacity of the plant to cover as much wastewater as possible, and increasing the amount of green electricity produced from biogas.
The main project they are working on is the three different phases to treat the waste of water.
“Having recycled water could be used in further ways such as irrigation,” she said. “Secondly, we can use the sludge extracted from the wastewater as a fertilizer after treating it. Thirdly, is the sludge to energy.”
In the sludge-to-energy project, they are working on reducing the amount of solid waste (sludge) to not fill up quickly the landfills in the future. Instead of that, they are producing energy from this waste by getting the biogas and transferring it to a modern technology device called “cogeneration heat and power” to produce electricity.
Ajman Sewerage employees are working hard and thinking of new ways to help save our country’s environment, especially the environment in Ajman. However, if society is behaving incorrectly, they are harming the environment a lot, and at the same time, awareness has been spread everywhere. People should change their thinking and start thinking about the future and the next generations.
Alajmani is planning in the coming years on finishing her master’s degree.
“As an Emirati, dedicated and diligent woman, I am planning to reach that point where I can make my country and family proud of me,” she said. “Not everyone would realize how important we should behave to save the environment.
“But a successful and ambitious person never gets enough from learning and improving. It is not only about improving skills, it is more into preparing myself to face a bigger challenge in the future.”
About the author
Ayesha Mohamed Alobeidli studies Integrated Strategic Communication in the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University in Dubai.
The editor for this story was Yulia Medvedeva.
