It’s better late than never, especially when it comes to your future, your children’s future, and humanity’s future and present.
Throughout time, environmental activists have called for a stance against polluting the environment around the world, and along with scientists and public figures they tackled the critical situation our environment is facing.
This led some people and governments to stand against the harms facing our environment. Here in Egypt, the Egyptian government is tackling pollution within it’s sustainable vision for the future. Also, people’s awareness started to increase, and some entrepreneurs decided to contribute to this initiative in order to save the planet, such as Go Clean and WeCare Eco-Friendly Solutions.
According to Surfers Against Sewage, an environmental charity in the UK, the amount of plastic pollution out there is around 51 trillion microscopic pieces of plastic, and a plastic bottle can last up to 450 years in a marine environment, which means that any plastic piece ever produced is still on the Earth’s surface.
Go Clean PR manager, Nancy Moussa said, “We are trying to expand as much as we can for a better Egypt, currently we are operating in almost every area in Cairo and Alex, and we are planning to expand in other governorates. Also, we want people to be more aware about the significance of recycling, and change people’s mentality and spread awareness about environmental threats in schools, universities, offices and everywhere.”
VIA Go Clean
Go Clean is a recycling center that exchanges non biodegradable material for cash or household products. The process starts when people consume metal, plastic or paper products and contact them, they come and collect the goods and exchange their trash with a reward.
By the beginning of next month, Go Clean will launch it’s mobile application to enhance users’ accessibility. However, there are some challenges facing the company, but they are willing to do what it takes to achieve their goals, such as the wide geographic area of the country, which makes it a difficult task to spread their operations across the country, and the lack of awareness that is present in the Egyptian society, Moussa added.
“We ask our clients to segregate their wastes based on their materials, and according to the price list and the weight of their wastes, we provide them with their incentive and three biodegradable plastic bags to facilitate the segregation process. Afterwards, they are informed with the reward amount they will receive, and they get to choose whether to take cash or household products, or donate their rewards,” she said.
On the other hand, other initiatives are currently taking place to help make the planet, and especially Egypt, a better place by tackling it from another angle. WeCare Eco-Friendly Solutions provides new eco-friendly household alternatives that are high quality recyclable products and can be used for multi-purposes.
VIA WeCare Eco-Friendly Solutions
“With all the environmental awareness regarding plastic use and calls to cut down plastic use, we haven’t found any campaigns offering a practical alternative to plastic use. We target the household, as it’s the first and most important step that can make a big change. We decided to start this project and be the first to present paper products to normal consumers that can replace single-use plastic, and thereby minimize plastic waste in Egypt,” WeCare Eco-Friendly Solutions founder, Dunia Elmasry explained.
Elmasry added, WeCare’s paper products are made of specialized food wrapping paper that is certified safe to use for food. Paper products are compostable so they do not harm the environment as they start decomposing within 2 weeks, unlike plastic that might take up to 10 years and in fact plastic does not decompose or degrade, it just breaks down into smaller pieces which is more dangerous. These small pieces are integrated into our food chain via the oceans through seafood or soil that is used in agriculture, and therefore into the plants.
“We aim to provide the people with more practical EcoFriendly ideas and solutions that will help every individual make a positive change to their surroundings. In addition, we use awareness when we market all our products via social media, and we are currently developing videos that encourage people to make better choices and give them solutions and alternatives to their daily plastic use, and not only by using our products but in general,” she said.
