The Environment Ministry next week plans to send 14 tons of expired oil recently seized from the local market to the Alexandria Petroleum Company for recycling. In the first case of its kind in Egyptian courts, the dealers caught selling the bad oil were sentenced to ten years in prison and fined LE40,000 each.
In a related development, the ministry has ordered certain textiles and sugar factories in the Upper Egyptian city of Naga-Hammadi to employ a material used for purifying sewage and industrial waste after local residents filed numerous complaints about foul odors that have recently plagued the area. Environment Minister Maged George instructed said factories to use treated waste for the irrigation of five acres close to the factories, in which there are some 35,000 trees that produce 250 tons of timber every six months that can be exported to foreign markets.
"This project comes in accordance with the international agreement on climate change," said George.
The ministry is also investigating recent complaints lodged by residents of the Middle Egyptian city of Assiut about hazardous emissions emanating from a local fertilizers factory.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
