Like many countries, Egypt’s population produces large amount of waste, Egypt generated an estimated 15.3 million tons of municipal solid waste in 2001. It also generates annually 20 million tons of agricultural waste, 6.2 million tons of special waste (of which 0.3 million tons is hazardous waste), 4 million tons of demolition waste and 130,000 tons of medical waste.
A lot of human activities may cause a serious disturbance to many ecosystems. For an example, Wadi Digla, a located area in the Eastern Desert near to Cairo, is exposed to serious problems resulting from two different human disturbing activities which are waste disposal and waste recycling in the wadi, the wadi has been announced as a protected area since 1999 and although the low forbids such human disturbing activities; the wadi has been, and still, supposed to such activities which are done within the protectorate buffer area. Many tons of waste has been accumulated in the northern part of the wadi besides a recycling factory working there in addition to a garage belongs to the Cairo Public Transportation Agency. The recycling factory works before the declaration of the wadi as a protected area.
This case study discusses types of wastes and its effect on biodiversity in Egypt (especially in Wadi Digla) and on tourism and what shall we do to overcome this issue. |
