28 Feb. - 6 March 2002
Issue No.575
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002 Issue No.575 |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
Clearing the air
What's that acrid smell? Amira El-Noshokaty plods through smog to find out why Cairo's air is so difficult to breathe
When Ahmed Farag, an Egyptian national who lives abroad, planned a trip to Egypt this winter, he was looking forward to bright sunny winter mornings. What he got was very different. Farag returned home to continual thick smog that obliterated any blue in the sky. The smog, moreover came with an irritating smell of burning.
Even the Pyramids are obliterated by the thick smog that has become a facet of daily life
(photo: Sherif Sonbol)
"As long as the northern, moderate-to- strong wind blows, and the east side of Cairo remains an open dump, the wind will bring the smoke from the burning of open garbage and agrarian waste into the city. That's not to mention the emissions of the cement and chemicals factories and the iron and steel smelters," Ahmed Gamal, environmental adviser for the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA), told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Ibrahim Abdel-Gelil, head of the EEAA, explained that the smog was in fact made up of "particulates that are formed due to the unburnt carbon from cars, cement factories and the burning of wastes which happens around the clock. And while the polluting elements are constant, at times they feel more oppressive as a result of the change in the direction of winds and air currents."
The results are often deadly. The most dangerous particulates are called Pm10 and Pm2.5, both of which are smaller than 10 micrograms in size. These can easily pass to the lungs, causing severe medical problems (see diagram).
The wind is a convenient explanation as to why the city's citizens feel they are being suffocated whenever they walk in the street. In recent years, however, the government decided to do something about it, launching the Cairo Air Improvement Project (CAIP) in 1996.
CAIP is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with the EEAA and the Organisation For Energy Planning (OEP). Its goal is to initiate and implement measures that will reduce those air pollutants that have the most serious impact on human health in the greater Cairo area, especially suspended particulates and lead. Most of the work is done by the prime contractor, Chemonics International, which is providing project management, technical expertise and training.
A major focus of the project is reducing fuel emissions. Car fuel efficiency is being targeted to reduce exhaust emissions from gasoline. Total suspended particulate emissions from diesel-fuelled buses will also be reduced. Finally, the project will support the implementation of the government's lead smelter action plan -- essentially, the relocation of offending factories to out-of- the-way industrial areas.
A graphic representation of what air pollution does to you
You are what you breathecarbon monoxide: interferes with blood's ability to absorb oxygen, which impairs perception and thinking, slows reflexes, causes drowsiness, and can cause unconsciousness and death; if inhaled by pregnant women, it may threaten the growth of the foetus.
lead: affects circulatory, reproductive, nervous and kidney systems; suspected of causing hyper-activity and lowered learning ability in children, accumulates in bone and other tissues, so hazardous even after exposure ends.
nitrogen dioxide: can increase susceptibility to viral infections such as influenza, irritate the lungs, and causes bronchitis and pneumonia.
ozone: irritates mucus membranes in the respiratory system, causes coughing and choking, reduces resistance to colds and pneumonia; aggravates chronic heart disease, asthma, bronchitis and emphysema
toxic emission: a broad category including many different compounds that are suspected or known to cause cancer, reproductive problems and birth defects
Several measures are currently being implemented. Fuel-using vehicles licensed in the greater Cairo area are being subjected to vehicle emission testing and the capabilities of tune-up centres are being upgraded in hopes of initiating vehicle certification requirements. In addition, compressed natural gas is now being used in the municipal bus fleet. Lastly, an Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) and analysis programme exists to collect baseline data and measure the results of the afore- mentioned programmes. But CAIP itself will be phased out this year leaving comprehensive implementation of all of this to the government.
Cairo's greatest concentration of air pollution is in the working class district of Shubra El-Khaima, which is where most of the lead smelters are located. Helwan, also a working class area, is another choking spot because it is where the cement factories are located. In these areas, CAIP's immediate aim was to install and upgrade factory filters to minimise emissions.
AQM has been measuring the levels of lead and fine particulate matter in the greater Cairo area's air. In August 1998, a 36- station monitoring network ranging from Kaha in the north to Tebbin in the south was established.
The results of the effort are beginning to kick in. "The main air pollutants in Cairo are particulates and lead concentration," Ibrahim Abdel-Gelil told the Weekly. The latest official statistics show that the concentration of particulates is down by 10 per cent as compared to the year 2000, when the reading was 40 per cent, he said. Officials are also boasting that lead concentration is down to one-to-two micrograms per cubic meter as compared to last year's readings which showed the lead concentration to range between 24 and 25 micrograms per cubic meter. To put this last figure into perspective, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends that lead levels should not exceed one microgram per cubic metre of air if health risks are to be minimised.
EEAA's Gamal admitted that measuring the percentage of air pollutants is a difficult task because it depends upon the direction of the wind. Nevertheless, he said, "In Shubra El-Khaima, the percentage of particulates in the air is down to 30 per cent while sulphur dioxide is down to 35 per cent. One year ago, three of the area's electricity generating stations reduced their use of gasoline -- one of the main sources of lead pollution -- and now 80 per cent of the fuel they use is natural gas." He added that five years ago in Helwan, "the cement factories were emitting 10 times the amount they are now, after LE300 million was spent on electrostatic precipitation." Electrostatics is a way of bypassing the cement dust.
This new optimism is supported by the readings of one of AQM's 36 stations, which stands in the Al-Khalig garden overlooking the National Cancer Institute. One side of that station contains a device that monitors air pollutants such as nitrogen- oxides, mono-carbons and Pm10. On the other side of the room is the device that monitors lead pollution in the air. "The readings vary in accordance with the traffic," explained Hayssam Abdel-Rahman, the station's air quality specialist. "Since the garden is situated at a road intersection, the pollution rate is usually high at midday during rush hours," he explained. According to Abdel-Rahman, "Pollution rates are partially decreasing. We monitor the air 24 hours a day and send out the reports every hour."
Still, for Helwan's residents the quality of their air has yet to reflect the progress documented on paper.
Sally Daoud is an executive secretary who has lived in Helwan all her life. "The pollution has definitely increased," she told the Weekly. Her evidence? "When I put my laundry out to dry in the balcony, black items become white from the cement dust." She added that "Helwan residents dry their laundry indoors."
Daoud said that her red car was now a perpetual grey colour -- keeping up with dusting off the emissions is too daunting a task.
She looks up at a tin-grey sky. "They say that they have added filters on the cement stacks but personally I cannot feel the difference. Fifteen days ago, my doctor told me that I am suffering from a respiratory allergy due to the extreme pollution in the air. We have to close the windows all the time to keep the dust out, and on the streets at around 3 pm when it is hot, it is impossible to breathe." Ironically, it was not very long ago that Helwan district was famous as a health spa.
Though Daoud does her best to stop the pollution from invading her home, somehow the white dust slips into the house anyway and leaves its tell-tale mark on the leaves of her helpless indoor plants. "My plants are never green; their leaves have this pale greenish colour that is constantly coated with a thick layer of white dust," Daoud lamented.
Back in his offices, Gamal argues, "The problem with the cement industry is not only the stacks but most of the cement factories have open storage of raw materials, which include crushed limestone. To enclose such storage places would mean an investment of millions of dollars." Obviously, too high a price for clean air.
(a) The 1999-2000 inventory of stationary lead emission sources in greater Cairo clearly shows that secondary lead smelters, and in particular rotary furnaces at these facilities, are the most significant sources of lead emissions in the city. According to the study, lead emissions decreased by about 30 per cent in 2000 compared to 1999. Of the total emission in 2000, 79 per cent came from lead smelting activities, compared to 82 per cent in 1999, and 20 per cent resulted from the combustion of diesel fuel in 2000, compared to 18 per cent in 1999.The reduction of the total emission is primarily due to a production decrease in the lead smelting industry in greater Cairo as well as switching to natural gas instead of diesel fuel in the industrial and power generating sectors
(b) "Air quality": air quality is monitored at 42 monitoring stations distributed throughout the country. This is done through the measurements of a number of parameters, such as Pm10, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide. For the year 2000, Pm10 presented the most critical air quality problem in Egypt, primarily due to high background values resulting from dust blown from the desert. The highest recorded Pm10 values were found in industrial and heavy traffic areas.
Sulphur dioxide values were generally falling within the limits set by the Law 4 of 1994. These safety levels were occasionally exceeded in a number of industrial areas, however. As for nitrogen dioxide, the recorded values were found to also fall within the limits of law 4 of 1994. Finally, the concentration of carbon monoxide was found to exceed the limits in heavy traffic areas particularly during traffic congestion.
There are more than one million vehicles on the streets of greater Cairo making traffic emissions one of the major sources of air pollution in greater Cairo.
Excerpts from EEAA's annual report 2000-2001
According to Dr Mahmoud Amr, director of the National Egyptian Centre for Toxicological Research (NECTR), cement dust causes pneumoconiosis (dust in the lungs), while lead affects the respiratory system, liver, kidneys, blood and foetuses in pregnant women -- causing mental retardation. Further, according to a recent WHO report, "A study showed a significant increase of chest diseases occurred in school children living in Kafr El-Elw [a residential settlement close to a cement company] and Helwan city, as compared with those living in Shebin El-Kom, a more rural area. It was found that 29.2 per cent of school children in the first two settlements had obstructive lung diseases, compared to only 9 per cent in Shebin El-Kom. Furthermore, the high mortality rate caused by chest and cardiovascular diseases among the populations of Helwan and Maadi was related to the prevalence of high concentrations of suspended particles and sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere."
Across town in Shubra El-Khaima, lead pollution has been identified as air pollutant number one. According to a WHO regional report, "Few studies have investigated the effect of air pollution on health in the eastern Mediterranean region. In one study of residents of the Shubra El-Khaima industrial area, results showed that 37.4 per cent of the examined sample [4,730 people] suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and the prevalence increased with age. This study found that 1,478 students out of a studied group of 6,380 students were suffering from COPD. A strong positive correlation was recorded between Pm10 levels and incidence of asthma."
The government has relocated smelters to the out-of-town industrial area of Abu Zaabal. "From the lead measurements taken during 1999 and 2000 in the industrial area of Shubra El-Khaima, it is clear that the lead concentration was very high during 1999, about 25 grams per cubic metre. But during 2000 it decreased by about 46 per cent due the closure of lead smelters," Mounir Labib, manager of the Air Quality Monitoring Programme, assured the public. Labib is currently conducting a health risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis regarding the effects of pollution on Cairo.
Simply moving the polluters elsewhere may not solve the problem. One specialist pointed out to the Weekly that even if the smelters are moved, the winds will most probably blow the emissions back.
All across Cairo, analyses of street dust show that lead levels continue to be too high. The use of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is being promoted as a solution. CNG is considered to be among the cleanest burning fuels available for use in motor vehicles. Currently, the Cairo Transportation Authority and the greater Cairo bus companies are being asked to switch their collective fleet of 4,500 vehicles to natural gas instead of the currently used diesel fuel. To date, however, only 47 buses have been converted.
Last but not least, it is hoped that the Vehicle Emission Testing (VET) project and Tuning Certification initiative will minimise offending car emissions. The programme, a joint effort between the ministries of transportation and environment, will be implemented gradually with VET becoming an obligatory item of the routine license renewal procedures in a few months time. The programme is ambitious, to say the least. The number of vehicles moving in the streets of greater Cairo exceeds one million.
According to Hussein Abouzaid, Regional Adviser to the WHO, "The Egyptian government said that they banned leaded benzene completely from Cairo in March 1997. As a result, the percentage of lead in the air in Cairo was roughly halved." He added that "according to measurements based on sample areas, it is estimated that 3 million people die worldwide annually from air pollution and 2.8 million of them die from indoor air pollution. Ninety per cent of these deaths occur in developing countries."
Cairo traffic's contribution to overall pollution is in tune with international pollutant trends. According to City Limits, Putting The Brakes On The Sprawl by Molly O'Mara Shaheen, published last year, "While improvements in vehicles and fuel helped reduce air pollution in industrial nations in the last three decades, most vehicles continue to emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that warms the planet's atmosphere. Worldwide, the share of carbon dioxide emissions from transportation climbed from 17 per cent in 1971 to 23 per cent in 1999, jacked up mainly by road traffic. Motor vehicles accounted for 58 per cent of worldwide transportation emissions in 1990, but their contribution grew to 73 per cent by 1997."
Despite the efforts and successes, chest specialist Dr Rafiq Adly told the Weekly that last year alone statistics showed that the rate of chest allergies resulting directly from air pollution reached 12 to 15 per cent of the population -- as compared to three per cent 10 years ago. "The incidence of chest allergy is quite high in Cairo," Adly said.
NECTR's Amr, however, said, "There has been an improvement in air quality since the application of the environmental law. But we are working on the effects of 50 years of pollution. It takes time."
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