How Egypt is tackling single-use plastic waste in buildup to COP27 summit 

Volunteers in Cairo collect plastic from the Nile as part of a cleanup campaign. (AFP)
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Updated 23 October 2022
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How Egypt is tackling single-use plastic waste in buildup to COP27 summit 

  • Millions of tons of plastic waste are thrown into the Nile River every year, destroying fishing communities
  • Egypt’s resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh will host the 27th UN Climate Change Conference in November

CAIRO: For millennia, the Nile River has nourished the great civilizations of Egypt with copious fresh water, rich deposits of silt, plentiful fish, and means of navigation and trade. However, nowadays, the river carries another far less appealing bounty – plastic waste.

According to the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, about 4.5 million tons of waste flow into the Nile annually.

The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research also found that the Nile is one of 10 rivers contributing to 90 percent of plastic waste entering the world’s oceans. Another study carried out by Sky News in 2021 found that 75 percent of the Nile’s fish contain microplastics.

To highlight both the environmental harm and the sheer ugliness of the floating trash heap, environmentalists and volunteers recently joined forces to build a giant pyramid – modeled on those of the nearby Giza Plateau – made entirely out of discarded plastic.

Built to coincide with World Cleanup Day on Sept. 17, the pyramid is made from more than 7,500 kg of plastic derived from around 250,000 upcycled bottles gathered from the Nile by a team of 60 fishermen over a period of 45 days.




A pyramid of waste highlights the scale of the problem. (Supplied)

World Cleanup Day is a global movement that brings together millions of volunteers to remove trash and other mismanaged waste from the world’s beaches, rivers, forests, and streets.

Designed and built by the VeryNile eco-initiative, established five years ago, the pyramid consists of 170 blocks, each weighing roughly 45 kg.

By assembling these blocks into the shape and scale of a pyramid, organizers hoped to demonstrate the enormity of the plastic waste problem, encourage recycling and responsible waste management, and promote a reduction in single-use materials.

Furthermore, by imitating Egypt’s most recognizable monuments, organizers also hoped to show that the eyesore of plastic waste is a blight on the country’s beauty and heritage.

To mark World Cleanup Day, organizers held an event dubbed “Play by the World’s Largest Plastic Pyramid.” Volunteers, influencers, and celebrities participated in cleanup with kayaks, created art, and held recycling workshops using discarded single-use plastic bags.

The pyramid will eventually be disassembled and sent to a local factory, which uses plastic to make strings and covers for car seats.




World Cleanup Day is a global movement that brings together millions of volunteers to remove trash and other mismanaged waste from the world’s beaches, rivers, forests, and streets. (Supplied)

“We are aiming to reach and clean every single inch of the River Nile in Egypt of plastic waste, as it really harms marine life, and fishermen can hardly find fish sometimes,” Hanaa Farouk, project manager at Bassita, the Egyptian social enterprise behind VeryNile, told Arab News.

“Our success over the past years would not have been the same without collaborating with our great team of local fishermen and talented women.”

To this day, fishermen rely on the river for their livelihoods. However, plastic waste kills off the Nile’s once plentiful fish stocks. That is why VeryNile is working to restore the fishing industry by making 40 local fishermen their Nile ambassadors on Qursaya Island, Cairo.

Qursaya Island, in the heart of the Nile, is today home to several recycling workshops and a workspace for local women to produce crocheted accessories, hats, bags, laptop cases, and other products from recycled single-use plastic bags.

VeryNile offers these communities financial assistance, paying fishermen 10 EGP (around $0.50) for every plastic bottle they collect. The initiative also hires fishermen to sort and compact these bottles before they are sent to factories for recycling and repurposing.

VeryNile raises environmental awareness through its clean-up events, which occur at different spots along the riverbank, both inside and outside Cairo, bringing together volunteers from various companies, banks, and other entities.

THENUMBER

7,500 - Kilograms of plastic derived from 250,000 upcycled bottles gathered from the Nile.

These events are done with kayaks or a cleaning boat, which is the first in Africa and can collect 500 kg of solid waste per week.

The Middle East and North Africa region faces a plethora of challenges in confronting the buildup of plastic waste; according to the World Bank, over 570,000 tons of plastic are thrown into the Mediterranean Sea every year, wreaking havoc on industries that rely on the sea, from fishing to tourism.

Additionally, widespread consumerism in Gulf countries has led to large amounts of discarded single-use plastic, with five Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait) ranking in the top 10 per capita generation of solid waste. Saudi Arabia produces 15 million tons of waste annually - only five percent recycled.

Egypt is not the only country tackling the plastic waste problem. Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan, Oman, Bahrain, the UAE, and Tunisia have all implemented local and national laws limiting the importation and use of single-use plastic bags. Sharjah, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi have all implemented fees on plastic bags and committed to banning them by 2024.

Kuwait, Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have drafted laws or made policy recommendations to ban single-use plastic bags or replace them with biodegradable ones.

In line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 reform strategy, the Kingdom plans to invest over $6 billion into recycling by 2035. Saudi civil society groups also encourage people to recycle; the Mawakeb Alajer group has established recycling facilities where people can drop off everything from used paper to unwanted furniture and clothing.

The Saudi Investment Recycling Company, founded in 2017 to develop recycling capabilities in the Kingdom, plans to meet the objectives of Vision 2030 by enabling the creation of a circular economy – that is, an economy in which raw materials and finished products are re-used, repaired, and recycled for as long as possible.




A picture taken on September 29, 2022 shows plastic and garbage floating on the bank of Nile River in Cairo. (AFP)

In March last year, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the Green Saudi Initiative and the Green Middle East Initiative. Though they primarily focus on cutting carbon emissions, preserving and restoring natural habitats are high-priority goals.

The crown prince later announced the formation of a government body to oversee the violation of the Kingdom’s environmental regulations, vowing to hold polluters accountable.

Egypt is working on reducing plastic consumption in the upcoming years through a national strategy that aims to eliminate the negative impact of plastic on health, the environment, the economy, and society. The country aims to cut the consumption of plastic bags to 100 bags per person by 2025 and 50 bags per person by 2030.

The drive to ban single-use plastics often starts locally, as in Egypt’s Red Sea Governorate, which in June 2019 prohibited the single-use of plastic bags, plastic cutlery used in restaurants, coffee shops, supermarkets, groceries, butchers, fisheries, and pharmacies, and during safari and boat trips.

Following the steps of the Red Sea Governorate, South Sinai’s Dahab announced a ban on the use of plastic bags across the city in July 2021.




Women recycle singleuse plastics into fashion items and other products as part of a VeryNile eco-initiative. (Supplied)

VeryNile’s pyramid project comes just ahead of COP27, the UN Climate Change Conference, which will be held in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh during the second week of November.

At COP26 in Glasgow last year, hundreds of countries pledged to support energy transitions and climate change mitigation in the world’s poorest countries – those which contribute very little to carbon emissions and pollution but are the most affected by climate change.

In May, Egyptian special representative to the COP27 president Wael Aboulmagd said that helping developing countries adapt to climate change would be a priority in the upcoming conference, despite wealthy nations saying they would not deliver the $100 billion per year promised for stated goals.

At the end of September, Egypt called on all nations participating in COP27 to put aside political differences. Some countries staged a walkout in June to protest Russia’s presence at a UN climate meeting in Bonn.

Though 90 heads of state have confirmed attendance at the conference, the global economic strain brought on by coronavirus recovery efforts and the conflict in Ukraine may put environmental concerns on the back burner.

 


Four killed in Syria in attack on Aleppo university dorms, state news agency says

Updated 41 min 37 sec ago
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Four killed in Syria in attack on Aleppo university dorms, state news agency says

  • Islamist militants launched an incursion on Wednesday into a dozen towns and villages in the northwestern province of Aleppo
  • The attack was the biggest since March 2020 when Russia agreed to a ceasefire to end years of fighting

DUBAI: Four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in the Syrian city of Aleppo in insurgent shelling of university student dormitories, the state news agency SANA reported.

More than 240 people, mostly combatants, were killed as intense fighting approached Syria’s northern Aleppo city after militants launched a major offensive on government-held areas this week, a monitor said Friday.

Rebels led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham launched an incursion on Wednesday into a dozen towns and villages in the northwestern province of Aleppo, which is controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government forces.

“The combatants’ death toll in the ongoing... operation in the Idlib and Aleppo countrysides has risen to 218,” since Wednesday, said the British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.

In addition to the fighters, it said 24 civilians were killed.

Syrian ally Russia launched air strikes that killed 19 civilians on Thursday, while another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier, said the Observatory which on Thursday had reported an overall toll of about 200 dead, including the civilians.

The attack was the biggest since March 2020 when Russia, which backs Assad, and Turkiye, which supports the rebels, agreed to a ceasefire to end years of fighting that had uprooted millions of Syrians opposed to Assad’s rule.


Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages

Updated 29 November 2024
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Israeli military says Lebanese prohibited from moving south to several villages

  • Israel opened fire on Thursday toward what it called ‘suspects’ with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone

DUBAI: Lebanese residents are prohibited from moving south to a line of villages and their surroundings until further notice, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on X on Friday.
Israel said it opened fire on Thursday toward what it called “suspects” with vehicles arriving at several areas in the southern zone, saying it was a breach of the truce with Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, which came into effect on Wednesday.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah in turn accused Israel of violating the deal.
“The Israeli enemy is attacking those returning to the border villages,” Fadlallah told reporters, adding “there are violations today by Israel, even in this form.”
The Israeli military also said on Thursday the air force struck a facility used by Hezbollah to store mid-range rockets in southern Lebanon, the first such attack since the ceasefire took effect on Wednesday morning.
In his recent post, Adraee called on Lebanese residents to not return to more than 60 southern villages, saying anyone who moves south of the specified line “puts themselves in danger.”
The Lebanese army earlier accused Israel of violating the ceasefire several times on Wednesday and Thursday.
The exchange of accusations highlighted the fragility of the ceasefire, which was brokered by the United States and France to end the conflict, fought in parallel with the Gaza war. The truce lasts for 60 days in the hope of reaching a permanent cessation of hostilities.


Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers from Pakistan, other nations

Updated 29 November 2024
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Iraq tries to stem influx of illegal foreign workers from Pakistan, other nations

  • The Iraqi labor ministry says the influx is mainly from Pakistan, Syria and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers
  • Authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers as Iraq seeks to diversify from the currently dominant hydrocarbons sector

KARBALA: Rami, a Syrian worker in Iraq, spends his 16-hour shifts at a restaurant fearing arrest as authorities crack down on undocumented migrants in the country better known for its own exodus.
He is one of hundreds of thousands of foreigners working without permits in Iraq, which after emerging from decades of conflict has become an unexpected destination for many seeking opportunities.
“I’ve been able to avoid the security forces and checkpoints,” said the 27-year-old, who has lived in Iraq for seven years and asked that AFP use a pseudonym to protect his identity.
Between 10 in the morning and 2:00 am the next day, he toils at a shawarma shop in the holy city of Karbala, where millions of Shiite pilgrims congregate every year.
“My greatest fear is to be expelled back to Syria where I’d have to do military service,” he said.
The labor ministry says the influx is mainly from Syria, Pakistan and Bangladesh, also citing 40,000 registered immigrant workers.
Now the authorities are trying to regulate the number of foreign workers, as the country seeks to diversify from the currently dominant hydrocarbons sector.
Many like Rami work in the service industry in Iraq.
One Baghdad restaurant owner admitted to AFP that he has to play cat and mouse with the authorities during inspections, asking some employees to make themselves scarce.
Not all those who work for him are registered, he said, because of the costly fees involved.
Some of the undocumented workers in Iraq first came as pilgrims. In July, Labour Minister Ahmed Assadi said his services were investigating information that “50,000 Pakistani visitors” stayed on “to work illegally.”
Despite threats of expulsion because of the scale of issue, the authorities at the end of November launched a scheme for “Syrian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers” to regularise their employment by applying online before December 25.
The ministry says it will take legal action against anyone who brings in or employs undocumented foreign workers.
Rami has decided to play safe, even though “I really want” to acquire legal employment status.
“But I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m waiting to see what my friends do, and then I’ll do the same.”
Current Iraqi law caps the number of foreign workers a company can employ at 50 percent, but the authorities now want to lower this to 30 percent.
“Today we allow in only qualified workers for jobs requiring skills” that are not currently available, labor ministry spokesman Nijm Al-Aqabi told AFP.
It’s a sensitive issue — for the past two decades, even the powerful oil sector has been dominated by a foreign workforce. But now the authorities are seeking to favor Iraqis.
“There are large companies contracted to the government” which have been asked to limit “foreign worker numbers to 30 percent,” said Aqabi.
“This is in the interests of the domestic labor market,” he said, as 1.6 million Iraqis are unemployed.
He recognized that each household has the right to employ a foreign domestic worker, claiming this was work Iraqis did not want to do.
One agency launched in 2021 that brings in domestic workers from Niger, Ghana and Ethiopia confirms the high demand.
“Before we used to bring in 40 women, but now it’s around 100” a year, said an employee at the agency, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
It was a trend picked up from rich countries in the Gulf, the employee said.
“The situation in Iraq is getting better, and with salaries now higher, Iraqi home owners are looking for comfort.”
A domestic worker earns about $230 a month, but the authorities have quintupled the registration fee, with a work permit now costing more than $800.
In the summer, Human Rights Watch denounced what it called a campaign of arbitrary arrests and expulsions targeting Syrians, even those with the necessary paperwork.
HRW said that both homes and work places had been targeted by raids.
Ahmed — another pseudonym — is a 31-year-old Syrian who has been undocumented in Iraq for the past year and a half.
He began as a cook in Baghdad and later moved to Karbala.
“Life is hard here — we don’t have any rights,” he told AFP. “We come in illegally, and the security forces are after us.”
His wife did not accompany him. She stayed in Syria.
“I’d go back if I could,” said Ahmed. “But life there is very difficult. There’s no work.”


Gaza journalists win video award for ‘powerful’ war coverage

Updated 29 November 2024
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Gaza journalists win video award for ‘powerful’ war coverage

  • Belal Alsabbagh and Youssef assouna were presented the “News” award for their work on the devastating conflict set off by last year’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel
  • The prize has been awarded since 1995 in memory of video journalist Rory Peck, who was killed in Moscow in 1993, to highlight the work of freelance video journalists

LONDON: Gaza video correspondents Belal Alsabbagh and Youssef Hassouna on Thursday won a Rory Peck award for their “powerful” coverage of the brutal war in the Palestinian territory for Agence France-Presse.
The prize has been awarded since 1995 in memory of video journalist Rory Peck, who was killed in Moscow in 1993, to highlight the work of freelance video journalists.
Alsabbagh, 33, and Hassouna, 47, were presented the “News” award for their work on the devastating conflict set off by last year’s October 7 attack on Israel.
“Belal and Youssef’s work is remarkable for its range of emotions, we understood the dreadful scale of destruction in their drone shots and in the relentless attack,” the jury said in a tribute.
“This is visual reporting of the highest order. It’s not just a checklist of breaking news events, but powerful storytelling with empathy, courage and talent,” it added.
Among the heart-wrenching images entered in the contest were sequences of a man desperately searching for a relative in the debris after a strike, a woman howling in grief over a body in a hospital and Gaza residents queuing for food.
Alsabbagh, who left Gaza in April with his wife and daughter, was in London for the ceremony. In September, he was also awarded a prestigious Bayeux-Calvados prize for war correspondents.

This October 12, 2024 photo shows videographer Belal AlSabbagh (2nd left) and four other Palestinian media practitioners during the award ceremony as part of the 2024 edition of the “Prix Bayeux Calvados-Normandie of the war correspondents” in Bayeux,  France. (AFP)

“Despite my overflowing joy tonight, I have a heavy heart because members of my family and friends are still in Gaza, facing hunger, fear and still facing bombs,” said Alsabbagh, who has worked for AFP since 2017.
Hassouna, who has contributed to AFP since 2014 and is still in Gaza, has had to move home 10 times since the start of the war.
He has been one of the key independent video journalists working for AFP during the conflict.
“Everybody at AFP is tremendously proud of Belal and the work of his colleagues in Gaza. This award is a deserved recompense for his excellent journalism under seemingly impossible conditions,” said AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd.
“This prize rewards the courage of Belal and Youssef whose images for AFP showed television stations around the world the reality of the conflict in Gaza and the consequences for its civilian population,” said Guillaume Meyer, deputy news director for video and audio.
“I am very happy that their commitment and the quality of their work in incredibly difficult conditions has been recognized,” Meyer added.
“The Rory Peck award gives a precious support to freelance journalists without whom we could not work in numerous countries,” he said.
This is the sixth time since 2014 that an AFP correspondent has won a Rory Peck prize.
Among this year’s three finalists was Luckenson Jean, a freelancer for AFP covering the crisis in Haiti, where armed gangs have run amok.


 


44,330 Gazans killed in more than 13 months of war

Updated 29 November 2024
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44,330 Gazans killed in more than 13 months of war

  • Medics said Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday

GAZA CITY: The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that at least 44,330 people have been killed in more than 13 months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes 48 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to the ministry, which said 104,933 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Medics said Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday as forces stepped up bombardments on central areas and pushed tanks deeper in the north and south of the enclave.
Six people were killed in two separate airstrikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south.

In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes, destroying a multi-floor building and hitting roads outside mosques.
At least seven people were killed in some of those strikes, health officials said.
Medics said at least two people, a woman and a child, were killed in tank shelling that hit western areas of Nuseirat, while an air strike killed five others in a house nearby. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northern-west area of the city, residents said.
Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold.