For the first time, the government plans to construct a factory that will recycle taxi cab scraps, as a follow-up to last April's introduction of white taxis--an initiative aimed at ridding the capital of its older and more decrepit black and white taxis. Since then, old black and white scrap metal has been piling up at the government automobile junkyard on the Alexandria Desert Highway. Hence, the Ministry of Finance is establishing this new factory to recycle the scrap metal. "The idea of scrapping old cabs is new. It is based on modern technology that will come into use within nine months to a year, costing around US$5 million," said Mohamed Abdel Aziz, assistant deputy minister at the Ministry of Finance. "We have made many visits to countries like Germany and Belgium to assess the viability of the project. We also shared experience with the United States and Japan," he added. "New technology allows us to pass the car through a machine that breaks it into different parts, separating out the different raw materials: metal, aluminum, etc. These [parts] can then be sold as scrap metal," said Abdel Aziz. He added that car batteries, oil and fuel will be dealt with in an eco-friendly way. Old car scraps will be used to repair cars currently on the road, said Abdel Aziz enthusiastically. The recycling project will ensure that the reused parts are functional--making the roads safer, at least to some extent. So far, 17,000 scrapped taxis have been delivered to the Finance Ministry. "We are running out of room in the yard, and this was one of the factors that pushed us to develop this project. We receive around 100 cars daily," said Abdel Aziz. "The current yard is temporary, and the ministry is thinking of moving to a bigger one up the road, with an area of 76,000 meters." The current site is filled with rows of old taxis stacked in piles of three. People in the area do not seem to know much about the project. "We heard the factory is going to be set up here, maybe after eight months or something. It is still undecided," said the security guard who asked to remain anonymous. The tender provides 15,000 scrapped taxis to the recycling factory, which has the capacity to recycle around 2,000 cars monthly.
