Autumn may be a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness elsewhere but in Cairo it is pollution that dominates, Reem Leila reports For the ninth year in a row Cairo is shrouded in a dense cloud, triggering serious health concerns for the polluted city's 20 million residents. Exhaust fumes emitted by millions of cars mixed with emissions from the annual burning of rice straw in the Nile Delta are among the causes, alongside the city's ever expanding population. The black cloud, a mass of polluted air that darkens the skies of Cairo in October and November, may be less severe this year, says Ahmed Abul-Soud, deputy to the minister of state for environmental affairs. "Last year the cloud appeared for 20 hours in October and November compared with more than 100 hours in 1999. This year the cloud is expected to be similar to last year's, though efforts to combat pollution must continue." The air over Cairo is saturated with pollutants. Add to this the right meteorological conditions, and the burning of rice straw around Cairo, and the conditions are ripe for the black cloud to descend on the city. "This is the time of the year when farmers start burning rice straw to prepare their land for the next season. Farmers burn the straw over a short period and it accounts for up to 40 per cent of the pollution," says Abul-Soud. Another six per cent of pollutants come from burning waste in the open, 23 per cent from vehicle emissions, and the same percentage from factory emissions. "In autumn the wind drops and thermal inversions are frequent. The warm air holds down the cold air, preventing pollutants from rising and being dispersed." Topography aggravates the situation, says Abul-Soud: "The city is located between two elevated areas, the Moqattam hills on one side and the 6 October heights on the other, keeping emissions trapped in the middle." Emissions of nitrogen dioxide far outstrip the World Health Organisation's safety levels. Experts warn that levels above 200mg constitute a potential health risk. In the Cairo district of Al-Qolali levels of 305mg have been recorded, and in some areas of Giza reach 482mg. Worse still is the northern city of Qaha, in the Qalioubiya industrial zone, where a staggering 700mg have been recorded. Ahmed Gabr, professor of animal production at Mansoura University, points out that rice straw can be recycled into animal feed, organic fertilisers or paper. "Farmers are willing to recycle straw. The problem is that there are not enough straw balers to deal with the huge quantities of rice planted annually. Farmers have no choice but to burn the straw, causing serious pollution." Until recently, farmers planted more cotton than rice. That situation has now been reversed, and rice is now the favoured cash crop. Minister of State for Environmental Affairs Maged George has repeatedly accused local councils of failing to prevent farmers from burning straw. Together with Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Amin Abaza he has ordered that rice straw be collected for compacting and in the future farmers failing to comply with the regulations will have their fertiliser subsidies cancelled. The hope is that the black cloud can be eliminated by 2010. Legislation already exists banning the annual burning, says Essam El-Hennawi, director of the International Centre for Environment and Development, and farmers who ignore it can be fined. The government also plans to establish straw recycling projects in the Nile Delta. "We already produce 160,000 tonnes of fertiliser from 300,000 tonnes of rice waste. It's a good start," he says, but the project has been hampered by a lack of compressing facilities. Egypt's farmers produce 3.5 million tonnes of rice waste annually, and this year just 20 per cent will be recycled. The Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs recently acquired 70 rice straw compressors at a cost of LE1.3 million. These compressors, as well as 40 others purchased by the Agriculture Ministry, will be used to process straw for a radius of 40km around Cairo, reducing pollution and turning the straw into useful fodder. The Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs, says Abul-Soud, is also targeting the emissions from Cairo's 2.1 million vehicles. We are encouraging people to switch to natural gas fuelled cars. Today we have more than 85,000 natural gas powered vehicles and 115 natural gas pumps across 17 governorates. We are also encouraging people to use public transport, and for taxi drivers to trade in old vehicles for new ones by exempting them from customs and sales tax." Mahmoud Abdel-Meguid, head of lung diseases at the Abbasiya Hospital, reports a doubling in the number of bronchial asthma patients this time of the year. "Pollution causes 2,400 cases of early death every year. It results in 15,000 new cases of chronic bronchitis, 329,000 cases of pneumonia and eight million asthma attacks," he says. "Cairo in general is witnessing an increase in the number of bronchial asthma and respiratory obstruction patients, and respiratory system tumors because of pollution," with children and the elderly most at risk.
