CAIRO - In Western communities, officials know how to make use of everything, even garbage, which is worth a lot of money, while officials in the Arab world, especially Egypt, should do more to recycle rubbish, which in many cases can cause disease and damages the environment. Rubbish is a raw material that can be used in manufacturing, creating many jobs and saving the world from the pollution caused by burning it. Egypt produces nearly 27 million tonnes of garbage per annum. Much of it is solid waste and rice stubble, which can be used to produce energy. This wouldn't be expensive and would be far better than burying or dumping it for insects to thrive on. Hassan el-Qeiy, the Chairman of a company concerned with environmental conservation, says that, in light of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's instructions to develop waste disposal systems, his company, in collaboration with a Dutch and a US firm, will set up a waste-recycling project, to produce electrical energy. The necessary equipment and machinery, costing 200 million euros (LE2.5 billion), will be installed at two plants: one at Kafr el-Dawar in the Delta and the other on the North Coast near Al-Alamein. El-Qeiy told Al-Ahram newspaper that another agreement has already been signed between his company and a Dutch firm and a US firm to establish two factories in Egypt. The Egyptian company has agreed with the Government that the equipment will be manufactured in Egypt by the Arab Industrialisation Authority, in order to reduce costs. It is thought that the recycling of waste could lead to the creation of 500,000 new jobs. If the equipment is manufactured in Europe, it costs 24 million euros for a plant that can recycle 250 tonnes of rubbish; if the equipment is manufactured here, the same plant only costs 12 million euros. “To recycle all Egypt's rubbish would require about 360 plants, costing about 9 billion euros [about LE68 billion]. Foreign companies, in collaboration Egypt's private sector, could provide the funding for this without having to disturb the Government,” added el-Qeiy. The Director-General of the Solid Waste Department at the Ministry of Environment says that the technology for generating energy from solid waste is clean and safe. Professor of Ecology and Technology at Tanta University Ali el-Zahabi notes that one such factory would generate about 60 million kilowatts of power annually. “The total energy generated by 360 factories would be 22 billion kilowatts annually, more than double that of the Aswan High Dam, which generates 10 billion KW annually. “If this 22 billion KW, generated from recycling 27 million tonnes of waste, were sold for PT50 per kilowatt, that would bring in LE11 billion [$1.7b] per annum,” he says.
