Egypt launches e-waste management system

CAIRO – 8 March 2020: The government has started setting a strategy to safely get rid of electronic waste and agriculture leftovers, simultaneously while launching its new solid waste collection system in different governorates.

The Ministry of Environment sets out the strategy in coordination with a number of concerned ministries.

Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad stated that the ministry is working to solve the problem of different types of waste in parallel. She said that the ministry is coordinating with the Ministry of Telecommunications on a strategy to safely get rid of the electronic waste, which will be announced within two months.

As per the new system, citizens will not dispose any old computers, mobile phones or I pads in the trash cans.

“The ministry is keen on launching awareness campaigns to raise public awareness, and provide them with alternatives,” she said, adding that the ministry is coordinating with the Ministry of Health to manage medical waste, where new technologies will substitute burning the waste.

The Egyptian Ministry of Environment previously announced that it will start applying the government’s plan to close the unsafe landfills in Cairo and Giza and change them into facilities of public services.

Late January 2020, Minister of Local Development Mahmoud Sharawy confirmed in the Parliament’s plenary session that the ministry allocated LE 12 billion [more than US$ 761 million] to implement a new garbage system. He asserted that the ministry eliminated more than 26 landfills nationwide.

In June 2019, six cities in the Red Sea governorate, southeast Egypt, started to apply measures to limit the use of plastic, namely Hurghada, Safaga, Marsa Alam, Qoseir, RasGhareb and Shalateen.