A 'black cloud' covered the whole of Cairo on Friday night, marking the beginning of the rice straw burning season. The smoky cloud coming from the Nile Delta bodes another autumn of bronchial woe in a country where roughly 10 million people suffer from lung allergies, medical sources say. The Delta Governorate of el-Sharqiya is considered to be Egypt's chimney, as open-field burning heats up from September until mid-November, according to the Environment Ministry. There are nearly 360,000 feddans (acres) of land cultivated with rice in el-Sharqiya alone. "The Government should do something about it. Inhalation of smoke causes bronchial asthma, pulmonary fibrosis and allergies for both children and adults," says Dr Mohamed Sami, calling on the Government to raise the fines and take more measures to stop this nagging seasonal problem. Earlier, Sharqiya Governor Hassan el-Naggar banned the burning of rice straw and imposed a fine of LE2,000 per feddan for those ‘caught in the act'. But it seems that the open-field burning is being done by ‘ghosts', as no-one has been fined, one expert says. "The Government is making statements, no more. Rice fields emit methane. Rice straw can be turned into fuel, saving billions of pounds," says environmentalist Ibrahim Lotfi. "Rice straw could provide a renewable fuel supply, as it produces a lot of heat." Rice straw may be turned into usable energy, by direct combustion in a steam-cycle power plant, which causes biogasification with fermentation to make ethanol and other fuels. For more than a decade now, the burning of rice straw in the Delta has been a nagging problem, creating the 'Black Cloud' every summer and early autumn. "A clean and safe environment should be a target in the coming years. Waste-to-energy solutions will help Egypt's economy in the long run," Lotfi explains. Waste-to-energy technology can meet as much as 10 per cent of the world's electricity demand, according to SBI Energy. "Based on continued growth in Asia, and the maturing of EU waste regulations and US climate mitigation strategies, the report claims that by 2021 the annual global market for waste-to-energy technologies will exceed $27 billion, for all technologies combined," the US-based energy market research centre said in a report issued earlier this year. In 2010, Egypt signed a protocol of co-operation with Canada to help the North African country turn waste into electricity. Waste-to-energy technology has gained momentum over the past 20 years. Egypt produces around 75 million tonnes of waste annually, according to the State-run Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS). The Government has spent an astonishing LE30 billion over the past five years burying garbage, according to official reports.
