Water Pollution in Cairo.
Cairo
The scale of pollution in Cairo is mammoth with the ever, continuing amounts of waste being released into the city. With the ever, growing population of Cairo levels of pollution are sure to increase. Recently the large EU financial institution announced on April 10 that it had awarded Egypt a grant of $79,000 to investigate the cause of the choking air pollution in the city, which has been blamed on Nile Delta. Due the massive amounts of pollution Cairo's daily air quality remains a constant health concern. The World Health Organization has reported that the air pollution in downtown Cairo is 10 to 100 times above the level considered safe
Water Pollution:
Cairo with 13 million people is the largest city in the Middle East region. As typical of giant cities, it has continuous rapid population growth and massive expansion. Since the city is an open environmental system, Cairo's surrounding regions are burdened with heavy wastewater discharges and increasing water demand. Also the city's water resources are affected by discharges from other regions.
Causes:
* Cairo is located immediately upstream of the delta about 250 km from the Mediterranean. The River Nile meet all of Cairo's freshwater demand; human daily use (consumption and domestic uses), agriculture, and industry.
* Just as the Nile is the primary source of fresh water, it is also the primary receiver of wastewater and drainage generated by different activities.
* The Nile receives large flows of mostly untreated domestic, agricultural, and industrial wastewater from Southern Cairo. Here I have discovered that along the Nile:
> Between the Aswan High Dam and Cairo, 43 towns with population exceeding 50,000 and approximately 1,500 villages discharge their wastes to the Nile
> Most of the residents in the region depend on irrigated agriculture for their livelihood, and 2.3 billion m3 of drainage water loaded with fertilizers, pesticides, and organic material is returned to the Nile annually in the Upper Egypt, upstream of Cairo
> 35 major factories discharge 125 million m3 per year of industrial wastewater with little treatment.
> Domestic wastewater
* Most of the wastewater collected by sewerage has not received much or in some areas no treatment. Also many wastewater treatment plants do operate unsatisfactorily.
* At the moment there are at least six operating domestic wastewater treatment plants serving the Greater Cairo area, and none of them discharge to the Nile near Cairo: three plants discharge through agricultural drains to the Northern Lakes and the Mediterranean, and the bilge water from two plants will be used largely for desert irrigation and land reclamation; only one plant discharges to the Nile, through an agricultural drain.
* Dumping solid waste - due to lack of solid waste collection - into waterways increases water pollution; in the city districts many small Nile canals are totally filled with plastic bags full of solid waste.
> Industrial wastewater
* 80 per cent of the whole country's annual industrial effluent is discharged untreated into the Nile, canals, wells, municipal sewerage systems, and the Mediterranean Sea Egypt's 329 major factories continue to discharge as much as 2.5 million m3 per day of untreated effluent into Egypt's waters.
* Cairo is one of the main industrial centres ...
This is a preview of the whole essay
* Dumping solid waste - due to lack of solid waste collection - into waterways increases water pollution; in the city districts many small Nile canals are totally filled with plastic bags full of solid waste.
> Industrial wastewater
* 80 per cent of the whole country's annual industrial effluent is discharged untreated into the Nile, canals, wells, municipal sewerage systems, and the Mediterranean Sea Egypt's 329 major factories continue to discharge as much as 2.5 million m3 per day of untreated effluent into Egypt's waters.
* Cairo is one of the main industrial centres in Egypt: 50-64 per cent of industrial activity is mainly located to capital. Its public sector industries (75 per cent) consist of chemical, textile, metal (iron and steel), food, engineering and cement production operations, and they use 162 million m3 of fresh water per year, and discharge 129 million m3 per year; each day they discharge 0.75 tons of heavy metals.
Consequences:
* Domestic & Industrial:
* 25 per cent of the population is left sewer less. Furthermore, even though 75 per cent of the population is connected to the public sewerage system, still only 15 per cent of the wastewater collected is fully treated, and of the remainder, 25 per cent is partially treated and 60 per cent is carried raw via open canals, finally to the Mediterranean Sea.
* Poor areas cannot always pay the high fees demanded by 'evacuators'.
* Continuing problem of overflows that swamped streets and homes with raw sewage; this was caused by the overloaded sewerage system.
* Egypt's shores and coastal fishing and tourism are being damaged, areas around industrial zones are becoming inhospitable, and water purification is becoming very costly.
* Cairo's Shoubra El-Kheima is an industrialized district north of the city, and its industries discharge to drains - which are heavily polluted - finally flowing to the Mediterranean Sea.
Solutions:
EEAA's strategy is to attack water pollution at its source. The strategy consists of several issues:
* The focus will be no-cost or low-cost clean technology measures (better housekeeping - pollution reduction as much as 60-70%.
* Not focus only obtaining cleaner environment but also on the economic benefits that will come in the process.
* In some industries recycling can be used, for instance in irrigation, of non-edible agriculture (such as cotton, or even for the irrigation of vegetables and fruits), and sludge generated in the process could be used for soil conditioning or composting.
* For the most severe cases treatment facilities will be necessary.
* Promoting local design and manufacture of equipment and facilities will bring the cost down by 70 per cent; on-the-job training in operations and maintenance will be conducted as part of a built-in-program.
* It would all cost a huge amount, which in the latter may influence Cairo's economy; also there is a less input into funding other solutions to other types of pollution.
Air Pollution:
The World Health Organization has reported that the air pollution in downtown Cairo is 10 to 100 times above the level considered safe. It has been identified that fumes from the 1.2 million automobiles, pollution form industrial sites and sand blown in from the Western Desert ensure that there is a permanent brownish haze over the city. It has been reported that the risk of serious respiratory disease and cancer is about two out of every 1,000 persons will develop illnesses from air born pollution in Cairo. Other sectors of the U.S agency also estimate that air pollution in Cairo causes between 10,000 to 25,000 additional deaths per year.
Causes:
* Main causer of air pollution and a high level of lead in the air is not the cars, but the industries located in Cairo, especially Shubra Al Kheima, where there is a heavy concentration of lead smelters.
* Cars still contribute to the huge level of pollution. 20% of vehicles in the road are in need of engine regulation.
* House top industries also account to the pollution by allowing it to be located through out the city and not just concentrated in one certain location.
* High levels of congestions long motorways lead to concentrated pollution in some parts of the city.
Consequences:
* High levels of air pollution results in to hazes, which can be seen from afar.
* High levels of cancer causing pollutants increases death rate and reduces life expectancy
Solutions:
* Of AID's $ 815 million 1995 budget, $ 50 million has been allocated for cleaning Cairo's air. The agency plans to help the government of Egypt inspect vehicles to remove the biggest polluters from the street.
* AID is researching a plan to change bus diesel fuel to natural gas and is investigating a scheme to reduce lead levels at smelter factories.
* Government has given itself five years to have all vehicles operating in Cairo area operating on natural gas, in line with the 1994 law on the environment.
* The Cairo Air Improvement Project CAIP (which is funded by the USAID) is also working with the Cairo Transit Authority and the Greater Cairo Bus Company to switch their buses to gas operating buses.
* CAIP project aims to reduce lead pollution by 90% and to bring down exhaust emissions from vehicles.
* Government has focused more attention on indoor pollution than outdoors because of tourist complaints about unsanitary restaurants.
* Solutions incorporated here also help to find explanations for the level of noise pollution since they are to a degree inter related.
Noise Pollution:
At anytime in Cairo the streets are always congested with people. At midday the city is at its peak with 99% of the population awake and moving. Such high numbers of people, traffic and council work occurring at one time results to a massively high noise pollution level.
Causes:
* The massive 12 million people living there themselves account to high levels of noise.
* Endless honking of car horns cause massive disruption around congested streets.
* Countless home top industries resulting to high level of noise with shouting to communicate and banging of equipment.
* Cairo is in the incessant situation of development and council work is forever present to improve the location, ultimately it also accounts to high noise pollution in the city.
* Industrial work and progression results also to noise pollution especially in the Cairo heavy industries.
Consequences:
* Although there are not many results to heavy noise pollution the main one is disruption of concentration. This usually leads to short tempers, which will increase crime rates.
Solutions:
* In a sense solutions, which will help are inter related with the solutions accounted for air pollution. A reduction in car numbers will result to less noise and any advancement into building another motorway, although it will last a few years, reduces congestion, thus reducing car horn usage levels.
* Possible solutions are more or less ineffective because each month Cairo has 100 thousand people migrating into the city, and such huge numbers are difficult to control in terms of the amount of noise pollution they accumulate.
Land Based Pollution:
Most of the land in Cairo, in general, is pretty much dirty due to the dense haze, which always seems to hang above the city. Land based pollution can consist of many things, from factory spills to abandoned buildings. To an extent the problems of land use pollution are interrelated with all of the
other pollution types.
Causes:
* The factories in general are prone to accidents, especially in The middle of Cairo where there are house top industries present. Such accidents usually consist of spillages, which are typically left unattended.
* Disposal of waste is also another problem because there is not many functions, such as re-cycle bins, present in the city.
* Abandoned buildings are mostly found in the slums of Cairo where there are many things unavailable to people living there, such as water and electricity.
* Although land filling usually occurs outside of the city it is still a respective problem for Cairo, especially when it is still continuing to expand outwards.
Consequences:
* Spillages, which can occur in domestic and industrial work release usually chemicals into the surrounding environment. Although these are relatively un-harmful to humans they can still kill smaller animals and rodents, which can lead to rotting tissue, which induces disease. Spillages also can lead to poisoning of water sources, which are usually untreated.
* Waste disposal appears as an eyesore to the general public and can discourage tourism. As stated before the government is now looking more in to interior air pollution. Waste can also promote disease.
* Abandoned homes which are left derelict can collapse which although saves the Egyptian government from razing the building it still possesses certain degree of danger. Decaying buildings also act as eyesores.
* Land filling is quite large in Cairo because there is little or no re-cycling taking place in the city since it would be a huge financial investment. As the outer areas of Cairo are filled with the rubbish it may prove a problem when the city is expanding, principally when foundations are being applied to the ground for buildings.
Solutions:
* Most of this type of pollution is actually left unattended since there are not sources, which indicate that any type of activity takes place. Most of the run down homes are probably inhabited by immigrants in to Cairo until there achieve a better status in the city.
* Waste is still left in plastic bags and thrown into rivers and the streets since there has been no introduction of any re-cycling schemes because they are very costly and in a sense very uneconomically advantageous.
* Nothing much can really be done to help sort out problems with spillages because most of them are accidental or people who are responsible do not report or clean them up because there is possibly a fine.
