By Amr Nabil News Focus Syria Thinks Small Damascus turns to microfinance to combat poverty An Industry Unraveling Once a symbol of national pride, cotton’s prospects are coming apart at the seams A New Way of Doing Business Non-profit group promotes economic development by giving companies a helping hand The Science of Buying Marketers examine the brain to find out what makes consumers tick Digital Booty With electronic piracy plaguing the music business,legitimate media companies scramble for a business model that pays A Rocky Start Theft, corruption and a little chaos mark the launch of a new property levy meant to haul the country’s tax system into the modern era Highway Robbery Reputation of white taxi program takes a hit as drivers caught rigging meters By Dana Smillie Burning garbage contributes to “the black cloud” By Omar Mohsen Instead of burning them, rice husks could be used as a source of alternative energy. By Mohsen Allam While the government blames farmers for the seasonal black cloud,industrial pollution is a year-round health hazzard.

By By Hania Moheeb

You don’t need to tell Cairenes about pollution. Bracketed by industrial zones, buffeted by sandstorms, bathed in emissions from gridlocked traffic and stuck under a thermal inversion for months at a time, the megalopolis that the Greater Cairo Area has become is not what you could describe as a breath of fresh air. Thick, choking clouds — not-so-affectionately called “the black cloud” by the local press — have engulfed the city every autumn since 1999.

The pollution is so tangible that hundreds of Cairenes suffer from respiratory diseases including asthma and bronchitis. And it’s not getting any better: This year’s black-cloud season saw the highest recorded levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and carbon monoxide (CO) since the phenomenon began. The rates were so high, one of the capital’s leading scientists is now estimating that as many as 500,000 Egyptians will contract potentially fatal respiratory diseases and cancers in the coming 5 to 25 years as a result of this year’s exposure.

No surprise, then, that the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs, established in 1997 and long-considered one of the most toothless arms of government, has come under heavy criticism for its failure to prevent the annual appearance of the black cloud, which officials continue to blame squarely on rice farmers.

They’re an easy target: Egypt has become one of the world’s top rice producers in recent years, with total area under cultivation climbing more than 30% in the past four years. In 2002-03 alone, Egyptian farmers milled more than 3.8 metric tons of rice, according to the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

And more rice, of course, means more rice-husk by-products, which farmers eventually burn to prevent the spread of parasites and to clear up field space.

Rice is mainly cultivated in the southern part of the Delta, and government officials say it’s that geographical proximity to the capital city that brings pollution from burning agricultural waste to the city.

The scientists don’t necessarily agree. Dr. Essam El-Hennawy, a top environmental scientist at the National Research Center, conducted a study in 2004 questioning whether the burning of rice husks could be blamed for the black cloud.

“Farmers have been burning rice husks for decades, but the black cloud has become noticeable over the last six to 10 years only, especially as villagers have stopped using agricultural waste for fuel and turned to cleaner and more efficient gas and kerosene stoves. Besides, smoke produced by burning husks can only travel for short distances,” El-Hennawy claims.

Almost all of Egypt’s rice is produced in seven Delta governorates. The main producer is Sharqiyah, which cultivates 281,000 feddans of rice per annum, turning out more than one million tons of rice a year and leaving behind an estimated 858,000 tons of husks (For more on the rice industry, see “More for Less?” on page 64.). Of that figure, 686,000 tons are burned. El-Hennawy says the volume of minute smoke particles that travel the 50 kilometers to Cairo is very limited.

By contrast, the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), the Ministry of Environment’s body responsible for setting environmental standards, insists that burning agricultural waste is the main culprit for the black cloud. Amin El-Khayal, head of EEAA’s waste management department, says, “The black cloud is caused by a number of factors. The foremost is the burning of rice husks. Burning garbage comes second, then vehicle exhaust and, finally, industrial emissions. These combined factors coincide with the phenomenon of thermal inversion that occurs during the autumn, leading to the formation of the black cloud.”

Thermal inversion occurs when a layer of warm air settles over the cooler air that is closer to the ground, trapping it there. There is little to no wind in an inversion layer, so pollutants stay in one place instead of being blown away. “The impact of burning rice husks is more pronounced because the air’s carrying capacity at that time of the year is limited,” says Khaled Abdel-Aziz, co-director of a lead-pollution monitoring project in Qalyoubeya, referring to the thermal inversion theory. “The air is already polluted, so the particles remain in the layer close to the ground.”

According to Muslim Shaltout, an environment researcher at the Astronomical Research Center in Helwan, the problem could be worse.

“If it weren’t for the fact that Cairo lays in the sun belt (where the sun shines most in the globe), a catastrophe would have taken place with many people dead from breathing such poisons,” he writes in his research. “The sun’s rays heat the air near the surface of the earth, which makes it rise, carrying all the pollutants with it, and then the wind pushes it away from Cairo. The problem occurs when the atmosphere stabilizes [in the fall], causing thermal inversion.”

A number of researchers and environmentalists have searched for a practical, economical solution to the problem since the turn of the century. Shaltout, who has conducted specific research on Cairo’s black cloud, says there could be better means of disposing of agricultural waste.

“Burning solid and agricultural waste is economically and environmentally illogical. Egypt is one of the poorest countries when it comes to biomass energy [created from vegetative waste], as its cultivated area represents only 4% of the country’s total area,” he says, “so burning rice husks is considered waste of a potential renewable source of energy — biomass energy. Countries like the United States and India treat agricultural and forest waste by distillation, turning it into light and heavy oils that can be used for a variety of purposes. The solid matter that comes out of this process is considered the best type of organic compost.”

The Minister of State for the Environment has welcomed the idea of manufacturing compost from agricultural waste, and a recent EEAA report seen by Business Today Egypt suggests that the ministry has concluded a deal with a Chinese research center to develop two facilities to convert rice husks into biogas for domestic use by rural residents.

El-Khayal says that agreement has not yet been finalized.

So if the problem is with the farmers, why not arrest them when they burn off the husks? Or deploy Central Security troops to prevent the burning in the first place? In public statements, Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Maged George has blamed municipal authorities for not monitoring the burning ritual. And while he inked a deal with the Ministry of Agriculture to collaborate in collecting 125,000 tons of rice husks from farmers to keep them from burning the waste this fall, even that modest target was not met.

The problem? Bureaucratic inaction, insiders say.

Farmers may bear the brunt of criticism, but the capital’s industrial zones are not exactly squeaky clean. Shubra El-Kheima’s spinning and weaving factories to the north of Cairo have long been a source of air pollution as the wind carries their emissions into the megalopolis.

In the 1960s, cement factories opened in the southern suburb of Helwan, adding dust to the atmospheric mix. During the 1990s, airborne cement dust levels exceeded 32 times the recommended limits set by the World Health Organization (WHO). An EEAA report on air pollution admits that “efforts to accelerate the pace of industrialization did not go hand-in-hand with proper environmental planning.”

That’s bureaucrat-speak for, “Oops. Maybe the cement companies are poisoning our citizens.”

El-Hennawy’s study ranks Cairo’s air pollutants as follows: 50% from industrial sources, 35% from vehicular emissions and another 15% (and probably the most acrid) from the burning of agricultural waste. Among the polluters he counted two years ago: 12,600 industrial establishments including 150 large factories; four main power stations; and about 1.6 million vehicles moving through the city streets — figures that rise by as much as 10% annually.

Worse: At least 40% of the 1.93 million (or so) vehicles believed to be on the streets today have older, poorly maintained engines that emit denser pollutants. Worse still: A USAID-sponsored roadside emissions testing program that would have pulled thousands of polluting vehicles off the capital’s streets appears to have become a dead letter since Washington started axing support for infrastructure, environment and health programs three years ago.

EEAA figures differ slightly from El-Hennawy’s and, if anything, they paint a darker picture: In addition to about 12,000 small industrial activities, the EEAA tallies four cement factories, 750 foundries, 70 quarries, 110 rock cutters, 53 pottery kilns, 73 lime stoves, 530 brick factories, 1,206 metallurgical factories, two oil refineries, five power stations and 269 coal processors.

While industry is clearly no angel, El-Hennawy says, it’s clear that factory emissions by themselves haven’t created the black cloud, which manifested itself only in the past decade.

Even before the phenomenon began, the government had taken steps to clear the air with Law 4 of 1994. Among other stipulations, it set limits on industrial and vehicle emissions; prohibited the burning of solid waste except in residential, industrial and agricultural areas; and even banned smoking in public places.

Problem is, the law has never been fully enforced.

In 1999, the EEAA completed the installation of two high-tech networks to monitor air pollution. One network of 20 stations monitors dust and lead particles in Greater Cairo; the second includes 42 monitoring stations in the most-heavily polluted areas throughout Egypt, checking levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone, smoke, carbon monoxide and suspended particulate matter.

In 1999, the Ministry of Petroleum started producing unleaded gas for private cars, and in 2002, the percentage of sulfur in gasoline used by industries and vehicles was reduced to 0.41% from 0.65%. Leaded gasoline is now off the market, as are most lead-based paints. The use of mazout (naptha) as a fuel by bakeries in residential areas has also been banned.

Under the Cairo Air Project, 50 public buses and 55,000 taxis and private vehicles were converted to run on relatively clean-burning natural gas, as have 98% of Cairo’s power plants.

In addition, a USAID-funded project has been working on reducing lead pollution caused by foundries. “Around 100 foundries are located in Shubra El-Kheima, where the wind [from] the north carries the lead particle emissions to Cairo,” says Abdel-Aziz, the Qalyoubeya lead-monitoring project officer. “We were supposed to work on the lead emitting foundries in Fustat — it is the worst heavy-metal pollutant and those factories are the causes of many diseases — but the governor closed down these foundries three years ago, which did not make our job any easier as the foundry grounds were still polluted. The concentration of lead in the soil has reached 65%, which meant that any breeze would scatter this dangerous material all over. We worked on treating these locations as well.”

EEAA statistics from the monitoring network show that air pollution decreased “significantly” from 1999 to 2004, with general pollution reduced across the country by 34%.

There are doubts about the official figures, and not just because of the annual appearance of the black cloud. In his study, El-Hennawy says, “The average daily sulfur dioxide concentration in the air is 170 micrograms per cubic meter. This figure far exceeds the recommended limits set by the WHO to protect public health. As for the black smoke, the average yearly concentration ranges between 65 to 88 micrograms per cubic meter, compared to WHO standards of 40 to 60. Lead concentrations in Cairo’s air range from one to three micrograms per cubic meter, a slight decrease that came about due to the use of unleaded car gas.”

There’s a clear and compelling economic case for curbing environmental pollution across the nation.

“Pollution causes 2,400 cases of early death every year. It results each year in 15,000 new cases of chronic bronchitis, 329,000 cases of pneumonia, eight million asthma attacks and at least 28 million days of reduced or lost productivity,” El-Hennawy says. “The overall cost of air pollution is estimated at around LE 10 billion yearly.”

Other researchers echo his dire prognosis. In an interview with the state-owned daily, Al-Ahram, Salah Hassanein, a professor of environmental studies at Cairo University, predicted that this year’s pollution could cause 500,000 new cases of potentially fatal respiratory problems and cancers in the next 5-25 years, a figure that has since been endorsed by leading epidemiologists.

According to Shaltout’s research, pollutants block up to 40% of solar radiation in certain areas of Cairo. A lack of sunlight can cause serious health problems, especially in children, whose bodies need the sun to convert and use certain vitamins. The causes and effects are clear, but experts agree there is no simple cure for the cloud.

“There is no radical solution to the problem. To end this phenomenon totally and to counter air pollution, we need billions of pounds,” El-Khayal says. “We cannot ask people to stop burning rice husks or agricultural waste if we do not have an alternative. We cannot even ask the municipal authorities to stop them if they have no budgets for that.”

In internal documents, the EEAA has outlined steps the government needs to take to control air pollution: promote the use of clean technologies, encourage technological upgrades of old factories, concentrate industrial activities in new cities and outside residential areas, control the burning of solid waste and find safe ways to dispose of and recycle it, and promote the use of clean fuel like natural gas, wind and solar energy.

Suggestions also include relocating the Helwan factories and the Cairo airport. But even the more logical solutions seem easier said than done.

El-Hennawy has his own ideas, suggesting that the 1994 Environmental Law and, most importantly, its executive regulations, must be reviewed to resolve issues including industrial emissions and traffic regulations. He also suggests that imports of air-polluting vehicles should be banned and that licensing fees for natural-gas powered vehicles be reduced. However pragmatic his suggestions may be, he still has no practical solution for the seasonal black cloud.

“Burning rice husks should be organized and open-air burning of rubbish prohibited, with penalties for violators,” he says. Until something is done, Cairenes can only hold their collective breath and wait for the smoke to clear. bt