Egypt to establish five additional e-waste management factories

28 / 11 / 2020

By Marwa Nassar - -

Egypt will establish five more e-waste recycling factories for the total number of factories operating in the domain to reach 12, Head of the Environment Ministry’s medical and electronic waste project Tareq Araby said.

He noted that statistics showed the government sector generates about 19% of electronic waste, while the private sector accounts for about 58%. Households are responsible for about 23%of electronic waste.

Egypt is also working on launching an e-waste application to help people ditch their old electronic devices in return for discount vouchers to buy new products, the Environment Ministry said.

The application will help the ministry ensure safe disposal of electronic waste, he said.

He added that the application will facilitate reaching households so that they will – instead of resorting to small merchants for used devices – get rid of their old electronic apparatus in return for discounts on new e-products.

He said the ministry set regulations to ensure that e-waste would not end in the hands of the informal sector that benefits from the valuable parts in the devices and gets rid of harmful parts in an unsafe way.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad had talks with Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat on means of boosting investments in the field of electronic waste recycling.

Fouad said the ministry is collaborating with the Communications Ministry in taking serious and effective steps in managing electronic waste which poses grave danger to human health and environment. Therefore, it was important to regulate collecting e-waste in preparation for sending it to recycling factories.

For his part, Communications Minister Talaat commended the efforts exerted by the Environment Ministry in regulating waste management.

He noted that there is cooperation between the two ministries in the field of e-waste management, underlining the state’s interest in the issue and this was manifested in issuing a law regulating work in the waste management domain.