- Title: Hand over your phone for a discount in Egypt's national e-waste initiative
- Date: 11th October 2021
- Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (OCTOBER 5, 2021) (REUTERS) UNITED NATIONS EMBLEM (SOUNDBITE) (English) DEPUTY RESIDENT REPRESENTATIVE AT UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME (UNDP), SYLVIAN MERLEN, SAYING: "E-Tadweer was part of a bigger approach that we had, market-oriented approach, where we focused on formalising the recycling part, moving from two formal recyclers to six recyclers, specialised with high tech processes and on the other side, we were playing a role in formalising the collection from the users of mobile phones and tablets in households to the points where at the end of the life of the equipment, we can collect these devices and channel them to the recyclers." EGYPTIAN AND U.N. FLAGS
- Embargoed: 25th October 2021 09:49
- Keywords: E-Tadweer Egypt Environment Waste
- Location: CAIRO, EGYPT
- City: CAIRO, EGYPT
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: Environment,Middle East
- Reuters ID: LVA00AEYPT4D3
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:A new initiative in Egypt offers incentives to citizens to hand over their old electronic devices for recycling in an attempt to minimize the harmful impact of its unsafe management.
'E-Tadweer', launched in June this year after Egypt passed a new law for waste management in 2020, connects citizens with e-waste collection points at branches of Raya and Vodafone, two private sector telecommunications companies, who in turn move the discarded devices to recycling centres.
The initiative also allows users to log their old devices into a special application and get discount vouchers for a variety of products as an incentive.
Nearly 90,000 tonnes of e-waste are produced annually within the country of 100 million people.
They are usually handled by garbage collectors in the informal sector who keep the recyclable parts of electronics and haphazardly discard the rest.
This poses a serious environmental and public health threat due to contamination caused by hazardous minerals.
Ten factories are currently licensed to recycle e-waste and more factories are expected to receive new licenses, the environment ministry said.
The project is carried out by the Egyptian ministry of environment with the collaboration of the United Nations Development Programme and a number of private sector companies.
(Production: Sherif Fahmy, Mohammed Zaki, Mai Shams El-Din) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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