Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh city declared free from single-use plastic bags

CAIRO – 22 October 2022: The city of Sharm El-Sheikh is free of single-use plastic bags, announced Egyptian Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad and Governor of South Sinai Major General Khaled Fouad announced in a press conference in the Old Market Square in Sharm El-Sheikh on Saturday.

The Minister talked about the executive procedures taken for making the city of Sharm el-Sheikh free from single-use plastic carried out through holding workshops and awareness campaigns for citizens and owners of shops and restaurants in the city. She added 10,000 alternatives to plastic bags like bags manufactured from fabrics have been distributed to the citizen for free, besides 350,000 out of 1 million bags made of paper.

 

The conference was attended UNDP Resident Representative to Egypt Alessandro Fracassetti; Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Egypt Tobias Krause; and representatives of the concerned authorities and media people.

“This comes in light the national strategy to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags, which was adopted in 2021,” by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, said Minister Fouad.

 

The declaration was stated after launching an initiative to clean up Sharm El-Sheikh’s land and sea from plastic materials on Saturday, in preparation for hosting the COP 27 conference due in the city on November 6-18.

 

The initiative was implemented in Ras Mohammed Protectorate and Wataniya Marina, the Minister said.

 

Ambassador Fracassetti announced the support for the Ministry of Environment in its efforts to get rid of the single-use plastic bags, thanking other partners like the Swiss embassy in Cairo and the European Union Mission to Egypt.

“Together, we raise awareness about the negative impact of plastic waste on #redsea,” he took to Twitter.

In #SharmElSheikh today helping our campaign to support @Egy_Environment ban on single-use plastic bags.

Thanks to our partners @EUinEgypt & @SwissEmbCairo. Together, we raise awareness about the negative impact of plastic waste on #redsea.

15 days to #COP27 pic.twitter.com/ykBqTFMKXy

— Alessandro Fracassetti (@AFracassetti) October 22, 2022

Single-use bags intoxicate the land, as most of the single-use plastic bags take thousands of years to decompose and turn into small plastic particles, which leash toxins in the soil and water. Thus, humans could eat plants cultivated in toxic soil and affect their health. Marine life and ecosystems are endangered by plastic particles which are found in a huge number in oceans.

The state is working on reducing the consumption of plastic bags to 100 bags per capita annually by 2025, and 50 bags per person by 2030, the Minister of Environment said in a previous statement.

Photos courtesy of the Egygptian Ministry of Environemnt