[ad_1]
A young entrepreneurial Egyptian is fighting his country’s huge plastic waste problem by recycling junk food wrappers, plastic bottles and similar waste that normally end up in landfills and the Nile River. contributes to.
At a factory outside Cairo run by startup TileGreen, noisy machinery devours, shreds, and turns into a thick liquid vast quantities of scrap plastic of all colors.
Sludge is made from all kinds of plastics and even from single-use shopping bags. It is then molded into dark, compact bricks that are used as exterior pavement for walkways and garages.
“Twice as strong as concrete” Co-founder Khaled Raafat, 24, slams one on the floor for emphasis.
The plastic is shredded, liquefied, and shoved into the outdoor pavement of sidewalks and garages.
Each tile has approximately “125 plastic bags from the environment”his business partner Amr Sharan, 26, speaks out over the hustle and bustle of machines.
Lafat said the company uses low-quality plastics and products, saying they are “made of different layers of plastic and aluminum that are almost impossible to separate and recycle sustainably.” ”.
Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, is also the most plastic-polluting country in the Middle East and Africa, according to a multinational survey reported by Science magazine.
The country produces more than 3 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, much of which is piled up on the streets and in illegal landfills, or ends up in the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Microplastics in water concentrate in marine life and threaten the health of people who consume seafood and fish caught in Africa’s great waterways.
– “The future of children” –
Launched in 2021, TileGreen aims to “recycle between 3 billion and 5 billion plastic bags by 2025,” Shalan said.
The company also says it uses low-grade waste and products with mixed layers of plastic and aluminum that are nearly impossible to recycle sustainably.
The company started selling outdoor tiles last year, has produced about 40,000 so far, and plans to expand to other products, usually made of cement.
Egypt, a country of 104 million people, has pledged to cut its annual single-use plastic consumption by more than half by 2030 and build several new waste treatment plants.
But according to the World Bank, more than two-thirds of Egypt’s waste is so far “improperly managed,” creating an ecological hazard that environmental groups are trying to address. I’m here.
On the Nile coast of Kurusaya, some fishermen collect and sort plastic waste from rivers as part of the VeryNile Group initiative.
As the Nile became more polluted, fishermen “could see the catch drop,” said project manager Honey Fauzy, 47.
According to TileGreen, the brick is “twice as strong as concrete.”
A 2020 study by a group of Danish- and UK-based scientists published in the journal Toxics found that more than three-quarters of fish in Cairo contain microplastics.
Further north, off the coast of the port city of Alexandria, microplastics were found in 92 percent of the fish caught, according to a study last year by researchers at the Egyptian National Institute of Marine Fisheries.
VeryNile, which launched a series of volunteer cleanup events five years ago, says it buys 10-12 tonnes of plastic each month from 65 fishermen and pays them 14 Egyptian pounds (about 50 US cents) per kilogram. says Fawzy.
– “Good step” –
World Bank says more than two-thirds of Egypt’s waste is ‘improperly managed’
VeryNile then compresses high-value plastics like PET bottles and sends them to recycling plants into pellets.
Low-quality plastics such as food packaging are incinerated to power cement plants, Fawzy said.
“You can’t clean the environment in one place just to pollute another.” He said.
The Egyptian program is part of the fight against global scourge.
Less than 10% of the world’s plastic is recycled, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The OECD said last year that annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics will exceed 1.2 billion tons by 2060, with waste exceeding 1 billion tons.
In Egypt, activists have welcomed what they see as a youth-led sustainability effort that has created demand for environmentally friendly solutions and products.
But the change, while welcome, still falls short, they say.
“These initiatives are finding ways to build value chains and are clearly in demand,” said Mohamed Kamal, co-director of environmental group Greenish.
“Getting value out of Egypt’s waste is a good step. But it doesn’t solve the problem. It just scratches the surface.”
[ad_2]
Source link
