NetworkNewsToday: EGYPT: RECYCLING LANDFILL, ORGANIC COMPOST, METHANE GAS CAPTURE (THE WORLD BANK)

NetworkNewsToday: 19 December 2009 - The World Bank: Egypt: Egypt is managing waste by recycling solids like glass and metal, making compost from kitchen waste and capture and combustion of methane from landfills.

Tons of trash from Cairo, Africas biggest metropolis is dumped at this facility south of the city every day.

It is the end of the line and the start of a new one. Workers sort the garbage, taking out glass, paper, and plastics. A magnet sucks metal off the belt: these will be recycled and sold.




Kitchen scraps and plants are piled into windrows and turned into compost that is sold to farmers. Cairo is aiming to treat 90 percent of its waste this way.

SOUNDBITE (English) Fayez Mekhail, engineer, ECARU:
Garbage is a treasure, if the men try to get benefit from it, so its very important for us in Egypt to get use from garbage and benefits from compost.

But garbage disposal also can cause pollution, releasing gases such as methane that add to global warming. Work is underway in Egypt to put less in landfills by reusing more trash and by the capture and combustion of methane from the waste that is sent to landfills.

With the World Bank as broker, this solid waste facility will be the first in Egypt to sell carbon credits to industrialized nations for recycling and composting. If they were just to put all of the garbage that is being reused into a landfill, it would release the equivalent of just over 500,000 tons of emissions over seven years.

The facility also makes money from its organic compost, which doesnt contain the insects manure can, or chemicals other fertilizers do.

The waste management company herein Alexandria is selling carbon credits—also through the World Bank-- for the methane gas it is capturing from its landfills, instead of allowing it to escape.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jean-Pierre Hansen, Managing Director, Onyx Alexandria:
We must respect the environment, this is our target. We extract the leachates, the liquid produced by the organic matter in the landfill, and also the biogas.

Egypts soil is poor, and the compost that workers distribute at this large fruit and vegetable farm is good for produce and the dirt it grows in.

SOUNDBITE (English) Jannie Leroux, Manager Hamid el Shiaty Farm We can see it in the growth, in the improvement of the quality, the improvement in the soil itself, its much better.

And as Egypts waste management companies work to reduce pollution in the environment, Egyptians attitudes are slowly changing. Millions of people generating mountains of trash, much of it thrown on the street, have growing awareness that trash doesnt disappear, but affects our climate, and ultimately, everyone. ................................................................................­................................ ( THE WORLD BANK ) ................................................................................­................................................................................­....... .......................................... NetworkNewsToday:
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• Egypt
• landfill
• recycling
• Cairo
• ECARU
• solid waste
• methane gas capture
• emissions
• carbon credits
• environment
• organic compost
• World Bank
• UN
• Jean-Pierre Hansen
• Onyx Alexandria
• fertilizer
• NetworkNewsToday
• Network News Today
• manure
• biogas
• trash
• garbage