First toxic waste management facility in region opens in Alexandria

The city of Alexandria last month became home to the first poisonous chemical waste management facility in the Middle East and North Africa region, which principally deals with mercury.

The project, initially proposed in 2007 by Egyptian environmentalists to battle the effects of mismanaged mercury disposal, was developed through a joint venture between the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA).

In Egypt’s case, the prime contributor of mercurial waste is fluorescent lamps or tubes, such as those seen illuminating the plethora of urban billboards. Fluorescent tubes are filled with mercurial vapor that illuminates when excited with electricity.

“When these tubes are carelessly disposed of with general waste, the mercury vapor inside them enters the natural biological cycles and can cause deformities and often death, particularly for plant life and fish,” says Fatma Abu Shouk, head of the environmental management sector at EEAA. “People think they are just regular glass light bulbs, and so they end up smashed or disposed of in general garbage piles or rivers.”

According to the EEAA, Egypt produces 40 million fluorescent bulbs annually, of which 8 million end up discarded as general waste.

“When we realized the dangerous levels of mercury in the environment, we began storing discarded tubes in office buildings, hospitals and government institutions - but something had to be done urgently,” she says.