The Egyptian Minister of Environment and Climate Conference envoy, Yasmine Fouad, said that the Egyptian government has taken a number of executive measures to reach the city of Sharm el-Sheikh free of single-use plastic bags, the most important of which are organizing workshops and awareness campaigns for citizens, shop owners and restaurants in the city, to raise environmental awareness.
The measures also included distributing alternatives to plastic bags represented in bags made of fabrics through outlets, in addition to a car for distributing cloth bags, as well as working to raise awareness on social media.
An initiative to clean Sharm El-Sheikh from plastic materials “land and sea” was launched in cooperation with the Governorate of South Sinai and the United Nations Development Program, with funding from the Swiss government, the European Union and the Cairo Bank.
According to official data, Egypt consumes 12 billion tons of single-use plastic bags annually.
As a result, the Egyptian government has adopted a national strategy to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags, which aims to reduce the negative impact of excessive consumption of plastic bags on health, the environment, the economy and society, by reducing consumption to 100 bags per person per year by 2025, and 50 bags per person. per year by 2030.
big risks
Hesham Issa, an expert in environmental affairs and a member of the Arab Council for Green Economy, said in statements to “Sky News Arabia”, that “plastic bags are one of the most dangerous pollutants on the environment and climate change in general, because the materials that make up plastic when burned release gases that lead to an increase in rates. Global Warming”.
And the matter does not stop there, as the risks of using plastic bags include the impact on the marine environment, according to Issa, as when plastic bags are thrown into the seas, this leads to suffocation of fish and also causes risks to humans when fish eat the remnants of these pollutants.
In this context, the Egyptian Minister of Environment stressed that stopping the use of single-use plastic bags was not an easy matter, but required many efforts to change the prevailing culture and clarify the danger of bags to marine life and the environment, for every ton of plastic bags equals the death and impact of 3 tons of marine organisms .
green city
The member of the Arab Council for Green Economy returned that it is important to emphasize that Sharm el-Sheikh is a green city, given that it is hosting the climate summit next month, and then Egypt must show with these measures to the international community that it is taking serious steps towards preserving the local environment and reducing emissions rates and pollution.
Issa pointed out that the steps that have been taken to get rid of plastic bags are important, taking into account the provision of suitable alternatives to the residents of Sharm El Sheikh, where the current initiative has found solutions to the crisis, whether by providing biodegradable bags or cloth bags.
He stressed that the Sharm El-Sheikh Declaration is a green city, meaning that it follows international standards whenever possible, and this in itself is a positive announcement that it is taking positive steps towards getting rid of pollutants in general.
The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh from 6 to 18 November, with the country hoping that Sharm El-Sheikh will become a global tourist and investment destination.
Egypt has implemented a number of projects to launch the green Sharm el-Sheikh, including the deployment of green transportation, gas and electric charging stations, the completion of converting all cars to work with natural gas, the completion of raising the efficiency and construction of roads and bridges, and increasing green spaces.
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