Trash is wealth but turns into disaster

Trash is wealth but turns into disaster

By: Faten khater

Update: June 2025
Published in Tahrir AlMasry newspaper
The second year-Issue 11-Tuesday, November 12, 2013.
▪-;-︎-;-All rights reserved to the owners of the listed images.



The issue of trash is still among the list of many problems that concern the Egyptian citizen, which may remain for a long time with the successive and accumulated events in society, so that government can develop radical solutions, perhaps it will turn from being an annoying nightmare that may increase the causes of pollution, epidemics, consumption of money and energy, and turn into the most important sources of national income and economic development, the development of means and mechanisms of recycling in its deepest sense in many countries around garbage for one of the sources of national income-;- especially after the recent trends of the principles of sustainable development and climate change.

Beginning of attention to be paid to the garbage crisis in Egypt, scavengers
Garbage collection began centuries ago in almost all countries of the world when homeless people, the poorest people, wandered to collect garbage from the streets, clean it and separate it, maybe they find a crumb of bread,´-or-something of value,´-or-maybe that was the only work allowed, as no earnings qualify them to work and earn. The matter evolved little by little, and the cycle of human misorganization exploded, becoming important for a sector of people, and the relationship between individuals, whether garbage collectors´-or-customers/citizens, also developed and became more sensitive, especially in the poorest neighborhoods where the poor collect waste from the poor.


The problem became clear in 2003 when the previous government contracted with foreign companies to lift trash, which angered trash collectors, Alzabalin in Nasser s facility and they considered it unfair, and began to work for them. The problem was complicated by the imposition of trash fees on the electricity bill in 2005, which aroused the anger of citizens on the other hand because they are paying for a service they do not get, on the contrary, the problem has expanded, and with the issuance of the law banning the breeding of pigs that feed on trash, trash covered the streets of Cairo, while the task of trash collection companies stalled for reasons that included the narrow streets in many neighborhoods did not accommodate trucks, and citizens began to pay for it many times, once with electricity, and another for trash collectors, alzabalin.


During the period when trash covered large sectors of the governorates, it appeared heavily in the area of duwaika, Ezbet Khairallah, Antar Estable, Al-Khayala road, al-Basateen, the head of the Cairo district stated in an interview on July 3, 2011 that there is no way to raise trash fees for the electricity bill, as services are not-limit-ed to lifting trash from houses, but include sweeping streets, establishing sanitary landfills for garbage and disposing of medical belongings, and fees are an alternative to the revenues established by law 38 of 1967. In a warm dialogue with the president of the al-Basateen neighborhood, September 12, 2011, he justified the problem of the al-Basateen neighborhood that the neighborhood budget is 4 million pounds distributed as follows, according to the statement of the head of the neighborhood-;- 2 million pounds paving roads, one and a half million lighting, half a million maintenance, 25 thousand pounds for trash.

In 2020, the value of garbage was removed from the electricity bill, and in 2022, Dr. Mustafa Madbouly, prime minister, issued Decision No. 722 of 2022 to issue the executive regulations of the Waste Management Regulation Law issued by Law No. 202 of 2020, the regulation included the approval of new cleaning fees ranging from 2 pounds to 40 pounds for residential apartments, with linking the determination of value as electricity consumption segments, and the decision of the prime minister provided for its publication in the Official Gazette and effective from the day following the date of publication. The decision was published in the Official Gazette in its issue dated February 22, 2022 issued today, Tuesday, March 1.
Collective responsibility
The beginning of the commitment to control the hygiene system, Community Health Protection and public health of individuals is a vital issue based on cleanliness and dealing with garbage is a collective responsibility that lies on the shoulders of the state and the public through adherence to many controls that turn it into a general culture for all sectors of society, and all entities.
Understanding the exact scale of the problem requires knowing exactly what a crisis is, the reasons for its seriousness, in addition to the role of capital in the manufacture and resolution of all crises.
Garbage is all waste resulting from human and natural practices, and is divided into ordinary waste such as household, medical, animal, industrial, and electronic waste, which is one of the most dangerous types of waste because of its severe damage and emissions that affect the health of the individual and the environment.



Garbage in Egypt is the most expensive type, whose profits may reach 180 billion pounds
Dr. Ahmed Hegazi, secretary general of the Environment Council at the Academy of scientific research, reported on a study conducted by the Academy in 2010 that garbage in Egypt is considered the most expensive types of waste because it contains the most expensive types of waste represented by organic materials by 30%, more than European countries whose organic waste reaches 10%.
He added that plastic and glass also account for up to 20% of media regret that these wastes are not used in an organized and efficient way, even factories are sources of more than their benefits because they are located in the middle of residential areas, Dr. Hegazi said, stressing that recycling garbage in Egypt, if done in an orderly manner, will bring confirmed profits of up to 180 billion pounds.

Official statistics for 2010 indicated that:
Agricultural solid waste accounts for 32%.
Waste from the purification of canals and drains 27%.
Sewage waste 148.8 million tons.
49.5% of the western province is generated.
26% of the Beni Suef governorate.
13.8 million tons of household garbage.
Cairo accounts for 39.4% of household garbage with a total of 5.4 million tons.
The per capita share reaches 173 kg of household garbage.
41.7 million tons of construction waste for 2010.
2.4 million tons of medical waste, produced from 26.6 thousand medical facilities.
There are 52 garbage recycling plants in the governorates of the Republic.
The provinces need an additional 85 factories.
Recycling turns garbage from a curse to a blessing
The world s trend is categorically towards reducing consumption, safe recycling and repairing broken tools, rather than rampant buying phenomena, with the obligation of designers to produce products in such a way as to allow their recycling, control manufacturing in general and-limit- the production of modern varieties of products that are still in circulation.
Recycling is the process of controlling, collecting, transporting and processing waste, to mitigate the negative effects of waste on health and the environment, as an additional mechanism to increase resources, reduce the depletion of more natural resources-;- such as, logging for the paper industry, the use of the recuperator for the iron industry, as well as:
The recovery of plastic per ton helps in the economy of 700 kg of crude oil.
The recovery of 1 kg of aluminum saves about 8 kg of bauxite, 4 kg of chemicals, 14 kW is equivalent to an hour of electricity.
A ton of recovered cardboard saves 20.5 tons of forest wood.
Each recovered sheet provides a liter of water, 2.5 hours of electricity, 15 grams of wood.
It also includes recycling, recycling of glass, textile materials, waste water, -convert-ing food into organic fertilizer, and methane gas, which is the main component of natural gas.

Lights shine in the residents of zabalin"s square after recycling experiment
On the fifth of November 2013, the residents of zabalin neighborhood succeeded in lighting the furnace Square in the neighborhood from generating the electricity necessary for lighting based on solar energy using lighting units they made by hand themselves from garbage waste. The cost of the study was borne by the Association of garbage collectors men, and the Lucas Association, while the cost of training was supported by the French and Swedish embassies in Cairo.
Similar experiences in the Arabian Gulf
region The Arabian Gulf region in particular witnessed the UAE, where the decision of the Abu Dhabi government came to improve the waste management process throughout the Emirate through a specialized waste management center, the mission of this center is to improve, develop, and innovate programs as well as the development of advanced waste management systems.in 2009, the program developed a new mechanism to facilitate the sorting process. the program provided homes with two types of containers, green containers allocated plastic, paper and metal materials, and a black one for foodstuffs. to ensure the success of the project, an intensive program was launched to raise awareness of the project and the waste sorting mechanism. The situation in Sharjah is no different from Abu Dhabi, in addition to activating 50 legal articles to protect the environment on land and at sea, where the punishment reaches imprisonment and fines ranging from 150 thousand -dir-hams, and more than one million -dir-hams for anyone who violates the Environmental Law.
Deadly waste solutions and the Basel Convention
Theoretically, it is known that all materials are -convert-ible, but some materials have a lower yield, so manufacturers prefer to get rid of them, and these are electronic materials that represent a dilemma for Western countries.
Dr. Deepa lisenhal-gertval, a researcher at the United Nations whose doctoral thesis is on consumer behavior and electrical waste, concluded that the Basel Convention on the control of hazardous wastes aims primarily to-limit- the amounts of electronic waste that are traded across borders and the countries concerned should circulate information on this topic among themselves.

Major countries dispose of electronic waste by shipping it to developing countries
Under the agreement, industrialized countries are prohibited from shipping electronic waste to developing countries, but countries that sign the agreement such as the United States can continue to export waste to developing world countries such as: Nigeria, Ghana, India.
But illegal trade leaks in many transactions, when an aid organization, for example, ships used computers from Germany to Ghana, for example, this is legal as long as the devices are still working, and it happened again and again that the ship s cargo was actually electronic waste shipped as computers, according to Deepa khertfal.
In random recycling mercury is used to use gold
She adds that it is difficult to know where the electrical waste ends up, the illegally traded scrap is identified by the carpenter active in the field of recycling and electronic waste is generally considered a danger to the environment and health, in the random recycling sector, "Mercury" and other acids are used to extract "gold"
For example, from the main board of the main computer, and this represents not only a danger to the health of workers working in recycling, but also a danger to the health of the environment in general, when this incendiary mixture boils, toxins escalate into the air, and then the rest of it is poured on the ground, the figures indicate that the EU countries alone produce 8.7 million tons of electronic waste, in addition to more dangerous types, these wastes are computers, used mobile phones, 6.6 million tons of which are exported annually to some African countries as old goods the path of businessmen and sometimes it comes to signing treaties to bury hazardous waste According to the agreement, the government is willing to pay a pittance in exchange for providing a safe hiding place for French waste, despite the fact that France is a signatory to the Basel Convention.
It seems that the whole world dreams of a clean home and a world free of waste, but individuals are destined to bear the bills of progress at the expense of their health, security and safety.

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