THE Telecommunications Agency has recently announced that it intends to withdraw the mobile lines of unknown users, as well as of people who use Chinese mobile phones that are environmentally harmful. Although the idea is to improve mobile phone services and end the many violations of individuals' privacy, what is lacking are the procedures for disposing of these dangerous devices safely. Instead of angering many subscribers who depend on these cheap mobile phones by asking them to get rid of them, the Agency should have come up with a way to collect these devices and get rid of them without polluting the nation's soil, air or water. In co-operation with the three mobile companies working in Egypt, the Authority should have collected these devices from the users and compensated them with safer ones. These companies have made fantastic profits, as the number of subscribers keep on rising: more than 50 million of Egypt's 80 million citizens now have mobiles. The least these companies could do is to use a fraction of their huge profits to give people new, safer phones, especially as certain mobile companies offered their customers free, unsafe phones when they purchased their lines. Whether Chinese or not, all mobiles pose a serious environmental threat because of their batteries. Although mobiles first began to appear in Egypt in the late 1990s, the Ministry of Environment and the mobile companies have yet to join forces to organise the collecting and safe dumping of expired batteries. Even assuming that more than 50 million subscribers each have only one mobile, think how many batteries must get irresponsibly dumped; some are even burned, polluting the whole environment. Of course, many rich people have more than one phone and they are often sold with two batteries anyway, so the environmental repercussions are mind-boggling.
