Business
Emirates To Launch onboard Utensils Made From Plastics Waste
By Ocheneyi Alli
Emirates Airline says that it will this month, launch onboard items such as plastic trays, bowls, snack and casserole dishes irecycled from Plastics waste nto fresh, ready-to-use Emirates meal service products.
In a statement to mark this year’s edition of the United Nations World Environment Day with theme, #BeatPlasticPollution, Emirates said that it will introduce the new recycled utensils onboard from June 2023.
The airline recently entered into partnership with deSter FZE UAE, to recycling millions of the onboard used items.
Emirates says that the project is in line with its commitment to consuming responsibly, adding that the new initiative is a transition to the principles of a circular economy, whereby items are reduced, reused, and recycled.
” Millions of old and damaged meal service items from Economy and Premium Economy Class dining will be collected after flights, washed and checked for damage, transported to a facility in Dubai to be ground down, reprocessed, and manufactured into new dishes, bowls and trays – before being sent to Emirates Flight Catering to be used again for thousands of meals in the sky,” said the Airline.
Commenting on the partnership with deSter FZE UAE, Emirates explains that deSter is a leading provider of service ware concepts to the aviation industry, and expert in closed loop manufacturing.
” Emirates will be reusing plastic materials that have already reached their end of life and would otherwise need to be written off.
The new trays, casseroles, snack dishes and bowls, potentially containing around 25% reused material (recyclate), will be brought back into service on aircraft across the globe, and the proportion will continue to increase over time.
” The team at deSter are members of the CE100 network, which includes some of the world’s leading circular economy companies and have also been awarded the ‘Gold’ Sustainability rating from Ecovadis – a globally recognized certification for sustainable practices.
Emirates elected to work with deSter once a facility in UAE was ready to facilitate the huge scale of Emirates’ requirement – substantially reducing the carbon footprint of sending the products to another country to be recycled.
The deSter factory also incorporates sustainable design principles focusing on solar power, efficient use of water and minimization of waste,” it said.
Emirates’ commitment to reducing plastic waste
Emirates Airline is committed to reducing plastic waste and has already implemented several initiatives in addition to the new closed loop recycling project.
Emirates has diverted over 150 million single-use plastic items from landfill each year by replacing plastic straws, inflight retail bags, and stirrers with responsibly sourced paper and wooden alternatives.
Blankets Recycled From Plastic Bottles
Economy and Premium Economy Class passengers can get comfortable with soft blankets onboard, where each blanket is manufactured from 28 recycled plastic bottles.
Over the course of one year, this initiative saves 88 million plastic bottles from landfill.
Emirates’ current range of inflight toy bags, baby amenity kits and plush toys are made from recycled plastic bottles, and over 8 million plastic bottles were repurposed during 12 months of amenity kit production.
The hygiene covers for bowls on Emirates meal trays and plastic tumblers are made from 80% recycled plastic (rPET).
Emirates Economy and Premium Economy amenity kits are made from alternative materials such as kraft paper, rice paper and recycled plastic, reducing the consumption of virgin plastic.
Emirates Cabin Crew segregate glass and plastic bottles for recycling in Dubai, diverting about 500,000 kilograms of plastic and glass from landfill in 2022.”
Business
Nigeria, UAE scrap tariffs on over 13,000 goods
Dr Oduwole said that the tariffs removal was part of a new trade pact aimed at expanding market access for Nigerian goods, businesses, and professionals, under the Nigeria–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed in January 2026.
•Dr Jumoke Oduwole
Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates have signed an agreement to eliminate tariffs on 13,000 manufactured products.
Dr Jumoke Oduwole, Nigeria’s Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment disclosed this, saying that while the Federal Government has eliminated tariffs on 6,243 products imported from the UAE , they have removed tariffs on 7,315 products imported from Nigeria.
Dr Oduwole said that the tariffs removal was part of a new trade pact aimed at expanding market access for Nigerian goods, businesses, and professionals, under the Nigeria–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed in January 2026.
Under the agreement, Nigeria will immediately remove tariffs on 3,949 products, representing 63.3 per cent of the total, while phasing out tariffs on 2,294 products over five years. Nigeria excluded 123 products from tariff liberalisation.
On its part, the UAE will immediately eliminate tariffs on 2,805 products, representing 38.3 per cent of the total, remove tariffs on 1,468 products within three years, and on 3,042 products within five years.
The UAE excluded or prohibited 593 products.
Business
CBN: 60 newly recruits staff laments three years of waiting without engagement
The concerned staff appealed to the CBN Governor, President Bola Tinubu, and other stakeholders to look into their plights, as economic hardship has taken a toll on them after about three years of leaving their jobs.
• CBN Governor, Olayemi Cardoso
A group of newly recruited staff of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) have cried out over delayed posting and onboarding into various positions since August 28, 2023.
The Guardian reported that according to the employees, the Apex Bank issued the offer, which was followed by an acceptance copy and instructions to resign from their previous places of work, where applicable, as part of documentation.
“We all tendered resignation letters to our former employers at that time to enable us to proceed with the CBN process,” one of the affected employees, Emmanuel Linus Dabo, who spoke on behalf of others,, told newsmen on Monday.
According to him, the application process started in April 2023, where their resumé were submitted to the Headquarters of CBN, and after some time, they received emails from the Human Resources Department for interview and aptitude tests.
“We did a medical examination at the bank’s medical clinic, where a code was given to individual applicants before we could access the hospital.
After the interview and medical and aptitude tests, the successful applicants were contacted by the HR manager to come to CBN Headquarters in Abuja to pick up their offer letter. We filled the acceptance letter without delay,” he said.
He further stated that there was a series of e-mails from the Human Resources office requesting that they forward their credentials for the online documentation, including their acknowledged resignation letters from their previous employers…
The concerned staff appealed to the CBN Governor, President Bola Tinubu, and other stakeholders to look into their plights, as economic hardship has taken a toll on them after about three years of leaving their jobs.
Business
KPMG, NRS settle rifts over new tax laws
In its newsletter on January 9, KPMG said there are “errors, inconsistencies, gaps, omissions, and lacunae” in the new tax laws that require urgent reconsideration to ensure the achievement of their stated objectives.
KPMG executives and Zaach Adedeji, chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), held a meeting on Monday following the disagreement over the new tax laws.
In its newsletter on January 9, KPMG said there are “errors, inconsistencies, gaps, omissions, and lacunae” in the new tax laws that require urgent reconsideration to ensure the achievement of their stated objectives
However, on January 10, the presidential fiscal policy and tax reforms committee pushed back against KPMG’s critique, noting that KPMG does not understand the laws.
The committee said a significant proportion of the issues described as “errors,” “gaps,” or “omissions” by KPMG are either the firm’s own errors and invalid conclusions, or matters not properly understood by the firm.
In a statement on Monday, the NRS said that Adedeji hosted a courtesy visit from the delegation of the tax advisory firm.
” During the visit, the KPMG team clarified that their earlier opinion on the new tax laws “had been misconstrued and expressed regret over the misunderstanding.
“They sought further clarity on the provisions of the laws and highlighted areas where recommendations could be made.”
The source said that the meeting ended with the delegation commended the NRS chairman for efficiently and promptly implementing the reforms.
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