Egypt: Living Under a Grey Sky

Arriving in Egypt two months ago, I was shocked to see the state that the country has fallen in. I had previously written about ‘Egypt Falling Apart‘ but I had not seen it all first hand. Despite my already-low expectations, I was shocked to see the deterioration that Egypt has faced in the past three years: Garbage piles on every street corner, excruciating traffic conditions, lack of care towards our national treasures, and plenty of other distressing issues.

These are issues that continue to be ignored by the people, and passively-accepted by the population. Unfortunately, these issues should not be ignored by the population as they threaten every corner of Egyptian life and society. In this article I will tackle the issue of pollution and tackle the issue of the Nile being used as a landfill. However, the coming articles will look at several other problems – Traffic, Sexual Harassment, and the illegal construction of buildings – that continue to plague Egypt and require urgent attention.

Pollution, and the Nile turning into a refuse dump for dead animals and garbage

Click here to skip and see the shocking lack of respect for the Nile River.

As the plane was landing in Cairo, I opened the side-window hoping to see the beautiful Egypt down below. This is what I first saw:

I had read that living in Cairo is the same as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day,but never imagined that the air pollution in Cairo (and Egypt in general) was that atrocious. Having come from Australia, the poor air quality was very obvious: Egyptians never get to experience a ‘clear blue sky’, and are instead treated to dull, grey skies – even on sunny days.

According to a WHO report, this pollution costs the government more than 5% of their annual gross domestic product in environmental damage. I am no biologist, but pollution is a great concern for those living in Egypt – causing respiratory damage, cardiovascular issues, throat inflammation and other long-term health problems.

What makes Cairo one of the most polluted cities in the world? For starters, there is the lack of regulations on actions of factories. Very few measures have been taken to reduce the carbon emissions of major polluting industries in Egypt. However, the greatest contribution to pollution comes from the lack of proper facilities to dispose of garbage.

From rich neighborhoods to poor ones – garbage is on every corner of Egypt’s streets. Garbage piles like the one above are left like that for weeks – attracting stray dogs and cats – and leaving a horrible smell in the air. Instead of properly disposing of them (once they are actually removed), a lot of Egypt’s garbage ends up being burnt. This has serious repercussions for the country’s air quality and health. The smoke released from the burning can deposit chemicals in crops (thus exposing people to those chemicals through food), lead to an increase in ‘acid rain’, accelerate ozone depletion, and cause the smog/grey skies that Egyptians experience.



Yet, despite all those scary terms, there was something else that really disturbs me:

In 2010, Al-Masry Al-Youm (a leading independent newspaper in Egypt) reported that 250,000 tons of garbage were dumped into the Nile at Minya. Today that number has multiplied: the Nile River has become a refuse dump for dead animals, industrial waste, sewage water, and more. The health concerns from this are clear: crops, ‘drinking water’, the soil, and Egyptian society relies on the Nile River’s cleanliness.

There is a famous Egyptian saying/myth that “Whoever drinks from the Nile, is bound to return to Egypt.” Unfortunately, drinking from the Nile River today will only lead to serious health concerns. The dumping of ‘hazardous’ material in the Nile River is an insult to the treasure that Egyptians have been lucky enough to have. It shows a significant lack of respect for the only lifeline of Egypt. There’s another saying in Egypt “Egypt is the gift of the Nile.” I’m not sure how this applies anymore considering the appalling way in which Egyptians treat the Nile.

Egyptians, the government, the media – everyone – has come to passively accept this reality: a reality where the Nile River has turned into a landfill, and a reality where Egyptians are happy that instead of trees on every corner of their streets, there are garbage piles. Everyday, I see Egyptians throwing used candy wrappers into the Nile. The government has generally never done anything to protect our ‘gift’. This is happening in front of us, yet the media is instead focusing on politics 24/7.

The selfishness, the politics, the carelessness – all of it will not matter when our country becomes unlivable due to the ‘death’ of the Nile and excruciating environmental conditions.

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