MOBILE phones have become extremely popular with young Egyptians, who keep buying new ones while insisting on keeping their obsolete models in their bedrooms. Unaware of the threat piling up next to their pillow, these young people are unable to dispose of these old electronic devices, because the mobile service centres refuse to buy them. “I'm not going to dispose of them for nothing,” says Sherif el Hassan, a university student, who has three old mobile phones in his bedroom. “But I would happily get rid of these dangerous sets, if one of the service centres would agree to pay me something for them, even just a token sum.” Realising the threat these electronic gadgets pose, Egypt's Ministry of Environment has disclosed that it is seriously considering recycling old mobile phones to safeguard the users and also the environment. This disclosure was made by Ahlam Farouq, Director-General of Dangerous Waste Inspection in the Environment Affairs Agency, affiliated to the Ministry of Environment. Ahlam stresses that the battery is the most dangerous part of a mobile phone, adding that mobile users reluctant to throw away their obsolete freecells should at least dispose of the battery, because of the threat of radioactive emissions. Pressing harder with its clean environment plan, the Ministry of Environment is currently dumping discarded batteries and other mobile parts in el-Asafra area of the Bourg el-Arab district in the coastal city of Alexandria. The Ministry, which is also in the process of constructing a recycling factory in Tenth Ramadan City outside Cairo, has appealed to mobile phone companies to co-operate in the safe disposal of old mobiles. Ahlam, who confesses that Chinesemade mobiles are the Egyptian environment's biggest demon, also stresses that her Ministry cannot go it alone and that the mobile companies and factories must also help dispose of them safely. Professor of Pollution Sciences Ahmed Abdel-Wahab of Benha University in el- Qaliubia Governorate south of Cairo says that the health of mobile phone users can be jeopardised by the 'electronic cloud' emitted by these sets.
