Egypt large landfills to be shut: Environment official

CAIRO – 14 August 2018: Head of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, Mohamed Salah, said that Egypt is about to shut its large landfills, as the state has secured lands to establish new landfill cells.

Salah said that there are random landfills in governorates, adding that the Environment Ministry has set a plan to deal with these landfills. He revealed that some machines were placed to control spontaneous fires that can start in the landfills.

Environment Minister Yasmine Fouad cited earlier this month the spontaneous combustion of landfills, emissions stemming from industrial facilities and vehicle exhaust as some of the main causes of air pollution in Egypt.

She also unveiled new measures to be applied to reduce air pollutants.

Among these measures is keeping a close eye, in coordination with different governorates, on random rubbish dumps for rapid intervention in case of fire eruption in addition to finding innovative solutions, with youths' involvement, to get rid of agricultural waste, the minister said.

Landfills that have increased in size over years in Egypt are subject to plans that would see them turned into recycling centers.



In April, former Environment Minister Khaled Fahmi said that Menoufia’s Abu Kharita, the biggest landfill in Egypt, will be replaced by the largest recycling plant in three months.

“The University of Alexandria will implement a plan for the disposal of the landfill, and we will provide experts to work on waste sorting,” Fahmi said.

“There is no society free from garbage, but we aim to solve the waste problem within four years. Once a new law [on garbage disposal] is passed by the House of Representatives, a company will be selected to run the processes of disposal,” he added.

“Sell your garbage”, a project launched by Cairo Governorate in early 2017, aims to establish kiosks in different neighborhoods where people are encouraged to sell their used cans, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard instead of throwing them away. It began with two kiosks in the Heliopolis district in Cairo, and other kiosks are being prepared in other locations in the governorate.