Young Egyptians Battle Plastic Plague

Environmental volunteers stand atop a pyramid of compressed plastic waste collected from the Nile, in Giza near the capital on "World Cleanup Day", September 17, 2022 © Ahmed HASAN / AFP/File
Environmental volunteers stand atop a pyramid of compressed plastic waste collected from the Nile, in Giza near the capital on "World Cleanup Day", September 17, 2022 © Ahmed HASAN / AFP/File
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Young Egyptians Battle Plastic Plague

Environmental volunteers stand atop a pyramid of compressed plastic waste collected from the Nile, in Giza near the capital on "World Cleanup Day", September 17, 2022 © Ahmed HASAN / AFP/File
Environmental volunteers stand atop a pyramid of compressed plastic waste collected from the Nile, in Giza near the capital on "World Cleanup Day", September 17, 2022 © Ahmed HASAN / AFP/File

Entrepreneurial young Egyptians are helping combat their country's huge plastic waste problem by recycling junk-food wrappers, water bottles and similar garbage that usually ends up in landfills or the Nile.

At a factory on the outskirts of Cairo, run by their startup TileGreen, noisy machines gobble up huge amounts of plastic scraps of all colours, shred them and turn them into a thick liquid.

The sludge -- made from all kinds of plastic, even single-use shopping bags -- is then moulded into dark, compact bricks that are used as outdoor pavers for walkways and garages.

"They're twice as strong as concrete," boasts co-founder Khaled Raafat, 24, slamming one onto the floor for emphasis.

Each tile takes about "125 plastic bags out of the environment", says his business partner Amr Shalan, 26, raising his voice above the din of the machines.

Raafat said the company uses even low-grade plastics and products "made of many different layers of plastic and aluminium that are nearly impossible to separate and recycle sustainably".

Microplastics in the water concentrate in marine life, threatening the health of people who consume seafood and fish caught in Africa's mighty waterway -- mirroring what has become a worldwide environmental scourge.

TileGreen, launched in 2021, aims to "recycle three billion to five billion plastic bags by 2025", said Shalan, AFP reported.

The start-up last year started selling its outdoor tiles, of which it has produced some 40,000 so far, and plans to expand into other products usually made from cement.

Egypt, a country of 104 million, has pledged to more than halve its annual consumption of single-use plastics by 2030 and to build multiple new waste management plants.

Low-quality plastics such as food wrappers are incinerated to power a cement factory which, Fawzy said, keeps "the environment clean with air filters and a sensitive monitoring system."

"We can't clean up the environment in one spot just to pollute elsewhere," he said.

The Egyptian programs are part of a battle against a global scourge.

Less than 10 percent of the world's plastic is recycled, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The OECD said last year that annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics is set to top 1.2 billion tonnes by 2060, with waste exceeding one billion tonnes.

In Egypt, activists have hailed what they see as a youth-led push for sustainability that has created demand for environmentally-minded solutions and products.

But while the change is welcome, they say it remains insufficient.

"What these initiatives have done is find a way to create a value chain, and there's clearly demand," said Mohamed Kamal, co-director of environmental group Greenish.



Jumbo Task: 400 Pills a Day for Elephants with TB in Pakistan

This photograph taken on May 16, 2025 shows Ali Baloch, a mahout, feeding a medicated meal to Malika, an elephant who is diagnosed with tuberculosis, at the Safari Park in Karachi. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
This photograph taken on May 16, 2025 shows Ali Baloch, a mahout, feeding a medicated meal to Malika, an elephant who is diagnosed with tuberculosis, at the Safari Park in Karachi. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
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Jumbo Task: 400 Pills a Day for Elephants with TB in Pakistan

This photograph taken on May 16, 2025 shows Ali Baloch, a mahout, feeding a medicated meal to Malika, an elephant who is diagnosed with tuberculosis, at the Safari Park in Karachi. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)
This photograph taken on May 16, 2025 shows Ali Baloch, a mahout, feeding a medicated meal to Malika, an elephant who is diagnosed with tuberculosis, at the Safari Park in Karachi. (Photo by Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP)

A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants suffering from tuberculosis that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day.

The jumbo effort by staff at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets -- the same as those used to treat TB in humans -- hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets, AFP reported.

The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000-kilogram (8,800-pound) elephants.

But it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they tasted of the bitter medicine, and crankily charging their keepers.

"Giving treatment for TB to elephants is always challenging. Each day we use different methods," said Buddhika Bandara, a veterinary surgeon from Sri Lanka who flew in to oversee the treatment.

"The animals showed some stress in the beginning, but gradually they adapted to the procedure," said Bandara, who has helped more than a dozen elephants recover from the illness in Sri Lanka.

Mahout Ali Baloch wakes early daily to stew rice and lentils, mixed with plenty of sugar cane molasses, and rolls the concoction into dozens of balls pierced with the tablets.

"I know the pills are bitter," the 22-year-old said, watching the elephants splashing under a hose to keep cool.

Four African elephants -- captured very young in the wild in Tanzania -- arrived in Karachi in 2009.

Noor Jehan died in 2023 at the age of 17, and another, Sonia, followed at the end of 2024. An autopsy showed she had contracted tuberculosis, which is endemic in Pakistan.

Tests carried out on Madhubala and Malika also came back positive, and the city council -- which owns the safari park -- assembled a team to care for the pachyderms.

Bandara said it is not uncommon for elephants to contract the contagious illness from humans, but that Sonia -- and now Madhubala and Malika -- had shown no symptoms.

"It was surprising for me that elephants have TB," said Naseem Salahuddin, head of the Infectious Disease Department at the Indus Hospital and Health Network, who was enrolled to monitor staff.

"This is an interesting case for me and my students -- everyone wants to know about the procedure and its progress," she told AFP.

The team of four mahouts wear face masks and scrubs when feeding the elephants to avoid contracting a disease that infects more than 500,000 humans a year.

Karachi Safari Park has long been criticized for the mistreatment of captive animals -- including an elephant evacuated after a campaign by American singer Cher -- but is hopeful its last two elephants will overcome the illness with a year-long treatment plan.