RAISING the environmental awareness of the public - children and adults alike - is still a challenge for environmental institutions. On World Environment Day (WED) this year, Wadi Environmental Science Centre (WESC), a non-governmental organisation, held an innovative, groundbreaking event in Cairo, at which visitors were made acquainted with several environment-friendly projects, with 'biodiversity' being a common theme. One of the main aims of the event was to encourage the public to help in environmental projects. "Our organisation has adopted an environment-friendly project, concerned with recycling waste," Karem Tawfiq, 28, a volunteer with an NGO called 'The Spirit of Youth', told The Egyptian Gazette during the event held to mark the WED. "Asingle tonne of garbage can create about seven jobs," Tawfiq said, adding that, if each Egyptian family started separating its organic and non-organic waste, it would make life much easier for recycling companies and individual rubbish collectors. "What has made matters worse is swine flu and the culling of all the pigs. One of the mostsuccessful projects is in Manshiyet Nasser district, where about 85 per cent of waste is recycled and exported to China, which uses it in its industrial projects." Sabah Khaled, another volunteer in the same NGO, said that recycling was very easy and attractive for young people, for whom it was better to do an easy job and earn some money than being unemployed. "About 95 per cent of garbage gets recycled by the zabaleen [dustmen], around 1,400 tonnes daily," she added. "The absence of an environmental element in Egypt's science curriculum is detrimental to the nation. Such an element would give pupils a more holistic understanding of science, environment, and the conservation of our natural resources, gaining an understanding of the unique environmental problems facing Egypt," Eman Khamis, the office manager of WESC, told The Gazette during the event held at Al-Azhar Park. Biodiversity provides the food we eat, the plants from which much of world's medicine comes, the clothes we wear, the trees that re-oxygenate the air we breathe and many more benefits. By providing a venue for environmental institutions, NGOs, donors, associations, and other organisations via local ethnic bands, poetry readings, musical and film presentations, discussion panels, the event, the first 'Carbonzero' in Egypt, succeeded in increasing public awareness about dealing with environmental habits that negatively contribute to climate change. The event included a panel entitled “Many Species, One Planet, One Future”, at which the participants were told that about 60 per cent of Egypt's garbage gets burnt or thrown into running water. "Today, we have set up booths for different zones, key environmental elements like water, energy, biodiversity, waste and technology," Khamis added. There were three sets of booths for children of different ages: 6-9, 10-12, 14-18. Children were the main target of the volunteers, who used simple objects to explain how we can live in a sustainable environment. One easy environmental game for children is for them to select one animal from a group of animals and one object from a group of objects, which exist in the environment like cars, houses and farms. "This game teaches children that God has created each of us to adapt to a certain environment and that we can all benefit our environment, helping maintain a global balance," said Mohamed Baghdadi, one of the volunteers in the event. Other ideas included using renewable resources such as solar and wind energy in environment-friendly projects, which may cost a lot to start up but have no running costs later on. "Some of the projects based on solar and wind energy have actually been implemented in Aswan and Sinai," said Engineer Ahmed Maher, another volunteer, who was responsible for a number of environment-friendly projects in the technology zone in the WED. This year's WED celebration drew the participation of more than 5,000 members of the public, as well as groups from language schools and national and private universities, donors, embassy officials, media representatives and local and international experts in environment and sustainable development.
