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.

 


Lebanon state media says Israel blows up houses in 3 border villages

Updated 4 sec ago
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Lebanon state media says Israel blows up houses in 3 border villages

  • ‘Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area’
BEIRUT: Lebanon state media said the Israeli army on Friday detonated explosives planted inside houses in three border villages that have been battered by the Israel-Hezbollah war.
“Since this morning, the Israeli enemy’s army has been carrying out bombing operations inside the villages of Yaroun, Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras in the Bint Jbeil area, with the aim of destroying residential homes there,” the official National News Agency said, the latest in a string of similar incidents that have impacted the flashpoint border area.

Suffering in Gaza ‘almost unparalleled’: Humanitarian chief

Updated 13 min 37 sec ago
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Suffering in Gaza ‘almost unparalleled’: Humanitarian chief

  • Norwegian Refugee Council secretary-general: Palestinians pushed ‘beyond breaking point’
  • Jan Egeland: Gaza rendered ‘uninhabitable’ due Israel’s policies

LONDON: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are experiencing “almost unparalleled” suffering, one of the world’s foremost humanitarian officials has warned following a visit to the enclave, The Guardian reported on Friday.

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, traveled to Gaza this week, reporting that families, widows and children have been pushed “beyond breaking point” by Israel’s year-long war.

He witnessed “scene after scene of absolute despair” as Palestinian families had been torn apart by attacks, with survivors unable to bury their dead relatives.

Gaza has been rendered “uninhabitable” as a result of Israel’s policies, supported by Western-supplied weaponry, Egeland said.

“This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of ‘self-defence’ to dismantle armed groups, or warfare consistent with humanitarian law,” he added.

“The families, widows and children I have spoken to are enduring suffering almost unparalleled to anywhere in recent history. There is no possible justification for continued war and destruction.”

Since last year, families across the enclave have been repeatedly forced to move from one area to another as a result of Israeli evacuation orders, which now cover 80 percent of Gaza.

The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, where a month-long Israeli offensive and siege have cut off an estimated 100,000 people from humanitarian aid.

An Israeli brigadier general said this week that there is no intention of allowing the return of Palestinians to their homes in northern Gaza.

Such a policy of forcible transfer would amount to war crimes, humanitarian law experts have said.

As aid continues to be cut off from the Palestinian population, the UN has condemned “unlawful interference with humanitarian assistance and orders that are leading to forced displacement.”

Egeland warned of the “catastrophic impact of strangled aid flows” on the Palestinian population, with people left unable to access food or water for days at a time.

The former Norwegian foreign minister and diplomat said: “There has not been a single week since the start of this war when sufficient aid was delivered in Gaza.”

Despite the acute shortage of humanitarian aid, Israel’s parliament this week passed bills banning the UN Relief & Works Agency from operating in the Occupied Territories, designating it as a terrorist organization.

Egeland called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to prevent the “deadly” situation from worsening, adding: “Those in power on all sides act with impunity, while millions across Gaza and the region pay a terrible price.

“Humanitarians can speak out on what we are seeing, but only those in power can end this nightmare.”


Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals

Updated 59 min 35 sec ago
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Turkiye’s foreign minister visits Athens to help mend ties between the regional rivals

  • Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues

ATHENS, Greece: Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan arrived Friday in Athens for meetings with his Greek counterpart as part of efforts to ease tension between the two neighbors and regional rivals.
Both NATO members, Greece and Turkiye have been at loggerheads for decades over a long series of issues, including volatile maritime boundary disputes that have twice led them to the brink of war. The two have renewed a diplomatic push for over a year to improve ties.
“Step by step, we have achieved a level of trust so that we can discuss issues with sincerity and prevent crises,” Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis said in an interview with Turkiye’s Hurriyet newspaper published Thursday.
The meeting between the two foreign ministers follows a series of high-profile talks between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as part of a relation-mending initiative launched in 2023.
Officials in Athens are expected to raise concerns about rising illegal migration, as Greece has seen an uptick in arrivals. And, despite deep disagreements on Israel and fighting in the Middle East, both foreign ministers are also expected to explore ways to improve regional stability.
The talks will help set the stage for a Greece-Turkiye high-level cooperation council planned for early 2025 in Ankara, Turkiye.


Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to ‘stop’ war

Updated 08 November 2024
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Turkiye’s Erdogan hopes Trump will tell Israel to ‘stop’ war

ANKARA: Turkiye’s President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he hoped US President-elect Donald Trump will tell Israel to “stop” its war efforts, suggesting a good start would be halting US arms support to Israel.
“Trump has made promises to end conflicts... We want that promise to be fulfilled and for Israel to be told to ‘stop’,” Erdogan told reporters on a return flight from Budapest, according to an official readout.
“Mr. Trump cutting off the arms support provided to Israel could be a good start in order to stop the Israeli aggression in Palestinian and Lebanese lands,” he was cited as saying.
Turkiye has fiercely criticized Israel’s offensives in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and in Lebanon, and has halted trade with Israel as well as applied to join a genocide case against Israel at the World Court. Israel strongly denies the genocide accusations.
Trump’s presidency will seriously affect political and military balances in the Middle East region, Erdogan said, adding that pursuing current US policies would deepen deadlock in the region and spread the conflict.


Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says

Updated 08 November 2024
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Nearly 70% of Gaza war dead women and children, UN rights office says

  • UN Human Rights Office: Systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law
  • The youngest victim whose death was verified by UN monitors was a one-day-old boy, and the oldest was a 97-year-old woman

GENEVA:

The UN condemned on Friday the staggering number of civilians killed in Israel’s war in Gaza, with women and children comprising nearly 70 percent of the thousands of fatalities it had managed to verify.
In a fresh report, the United Nations human rights office detailed the “horrific reality” that has unfolded for civilians in both Gaza and Israel since Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
It detailed a vast array of violations of international law, warning that many could amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly even “genocide.”
“The report shows how civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of the attacks, including through the initial ‘complete siege’ of Gaza by Israeli forces,” the UN said.
It also pointed to “the Israeli government’s continuing unlawful failures to allow, facilitate and ensure the entry of humanitarian aid, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and repeated mass displacement.”
“This conduct by Israeli forces has caused unprecedented levels of killings, death, injury, starvation, illness and disease,” it continued.
“Palestinian armed groups have also conducted hostilities in ways that have likely contributed to harm to civilians.”
The report took on the contentious issue of the proportion of civilians figuring among the now nearly 43,500 people killed in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Palestinian territory.
Due to a lack of access, UN agencies have since the beginning of the Gaza war relied on death tolls provided by the authorities in Hamas-run Gaza.
This has sparked accusations from Israel of “parroting... Hamas’s propaganda messages” but the UN has repeatedly said the figures are reliable.

Youngest victim aged one day
The rights office said it had now managed to verify 8,119 of the more than 34,500 people reportedly killed during the first six months of the war in Gaza, finding “close to 70 percent to be children and women.”
This, it said, indicated “a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality.”
Of the verified fatalities, 3,588 of them were children and 2,036 were women, the report said.
“We do believe this is representative of the breakdown of total fatalities — similar proportion to what Gaza authorities have,” UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told AFP.
“Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law,” UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement.
“Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war.”
His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.
The main victims of Israeli strikes on residential buildings, it said, were children between the ages of five and nine, with the youngest victim a one-day-old boy and the oldest a 97-year-old woman.
The report said that the large proportion of verified deaths in residential buildings could be partially explained by the rights office’s “verification methodology, which requires at least three independent sources.”
It also pointed to continuing “challenges in collecting and verifying information of killings in other circumstances.”
Gaza authorities have long said that women and children made up a significant majority of those killed in the war, but with lacking access for full UN verification, the issue has remained highly contentious.
Israel has insisted that its operations in Gaza are targeting militants.
But Friday’s report stressed that the verified deaths largely mirrored the demographic makeup of the population at large in Gaza, rather than the known demographic of combatants.
This, it said, clearly “raises concerns regarding compliance with the principle of distinction and reflect an apparent failure to take all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event to minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”