The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Atef Helmy launched today a national campaign for safe and clean disposal of e-waste. The first stage is launched in Smart Village on 14-18 September under the patronage of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and the Ministry of Environment (MoE).
The campaign—through which 28 events are to be organized until December 2016—is to be carried out through the implementation of MCIT Green ICT program, in line with the State’s keenness to maximize benefits of the environment-friendly ICT tools being one of the key development pillars locally, regionally and internationally.
Additionally, the campaign comes as part of the cooperation protocol signed between MCIT and the Ministry of Environment in November 2013.
In his speech, Atef Helmy has said that the environment protection is a joint responsibility that different ministries and sectors should share; it is also fundamental to reach sustainable development. The current Egyptian government pays great attention to climate change issues through its support for the use of technology to rationalize energy consumption, he has added.
According to Helmy, MCIT and MoE cooperation dates back to 2010. Both ministries sponsor environment protection programs against e-waste hazards; therefore, MCIT has called for a safe and clean disposal of e-waste.
The ICT Minister has called on private and public sectors to adopt this methodology, enrich the Green ICT agenda and launch similar campaigns to achieve not only “good governance of e-waste”, but also to use IT in mitigating the impact of climate change and achieve adaptation.
These targets necessitate citizens’ integration in different initiatives in order to obtain a clean environment free of e-waste. The plan is to establish a factory for safe and clean disposal in each governorate by 2020, Helmy has said.
The campaign aims to incorporate companies, individuals and different entities in Egypt in order to reach a safe and clean society, free of e-waste damaging the environment. It also targets benefiting from neglected resources and e-waste in order to best utilize them. This helps in obtaining the main raw materials which are part of many industries.
e-Waste Recycle phases start for electronics like computers, mobile phones, printers, networking hardware, cables, faxes, photocopiers and others, using the latest technologies and production lines that protect the environment through safe and clean means.
During the campaign period at Smart Village, certain areas are allocated as e-waste collection points in the premises of MCIT, Smart Village Company (SVC), Xceed, Oracle, Mobinil and the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AAST).
SVC and ITG, owning the first factory specialized in e-waste recycling in Egypt, are the main partners in the campaign. Last November, Helmy inaugurated the e-waste factory at the industrial zones of October 6 city.
The Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) president Ahmed Abul-Seoud, SVC CEO Adel Danesh, ITG CEO Khaled Ibrahim and a large number of CEOs of companies located in Smart Village attended the launching event.
