GIZ: Egypt

Background

With a population of around 100 million inhabitants, Egypt has an economy dependent on agriculture, tourism and cash remittances. The service sector provides most of the employment for the working population and contributes to the largest share of Egypt’s gross domestic product (UNDP, 2018). The tourism sector on the Red Sea and the Nile also makes a significant contribution to Egypt’s economy.With more than 20 million tonnes of municipal solid waste generated each year, the existing waste management infrastructure and services are unable to deal with these increasing amounts. Given that around 60 per cent of the waste generated is collected and less than 20 per cent of this is properly disposed of or recycled, a considerable proportion of waste ends up in canals, rivers, roads and in open areas, causing negative environmental and health impacts. This also has negative consequences in economic sectors, especially tourism (GIZ, 2020).

Aim of the cooperation

The aim was to reduce uncontrolled waste disposal by supporting recycling management and promoting an extended producer responsibility (EPR) system for packaging waste by preparing the framework and building blocks to ensure its successful operational launch.The project contributes directly to the Sustainable Development Goal on sustainable cities and settle-ments (SDG 11) specifically target 11.6: “By 2030, reduce the ad-verse per capita environmental impact of cities, including by paying special attention to air quality and municipal and other waste management”.

What we do

• Stakeholder Dialogues: We fostered stakeholder dialogues on the implementation of an EPR system for packaging waste.
• Pilot Projects: We developed pilot measures to introduce an EPR system.
• Knowledge Management: We processed results and experiences of the pilot projects and disseminated the findings to relevant public and private stakeholders.

Key results

• A baseline study was prepared by a team of international consultants.
• A Desk study for EPR Registry was conducted and EPR Registry requirements have been developed.
• A Case study report for Hurghada and Heliopolis was drafted and is under review.