“Celebrating Cairo Fishermen” – Joint Cleaning Event by oeoo and VeryNile

“Celebrating Cairo Fishermen” – Joint Cleaning Event by oeoo and VeryNile

NEWSFLASH

“Celebrating Cairo Fishermen” – Joint Cleaning Event by oeoo and VeryNile

 

On 9 August at 9.00 am, a Nile cleaning day organised by oeoo and VeryNile started with fishermen and volunteers. For the joint cleanup, 15 fishermen and volunteers joined forces to remove (plastic) rubbish from the Nile and raise awareness about the littering of the Nile and its banks. The event was also accompanied by the local SeeHamster VeryNile I. All the litter collected was eventually sorted and sent for recycling. A great success!

Since December 2020, VeryNile has been working with local fishermen to remove PET bottles from the Nile. The project now involves 45 fishermen who collect about 5 tonnes of PET every month with their own boats.

Every week, they bring the collected bottles to VeryNile’s collection point on Qursaya Island in Cairo and receive the equivalent of 0.65 euros per kg of plastic bottles. They also receive training on environmental protection and access to medical care for themselves and their families.

The plastic is weighed by a team of six plastic processors, sorted by colour (transparent, blue, green) and pressed into bales. Trucks bring the bales of recycled plastic to BariQ in Egypt, where the bottles are processed into pellets.

These pellets are eventually exported to Spain, where they are recycled into high-quality materials under the SeaQual label.

The collected HDPE as well as non-recyclable plastic is given to local waste collectors for further processing.