Cloud of Controversy Over Pollution in Egypt’s Capital

Six-month-old Hassan is suffering another asthma attack, his breath labored and his chest heaving.

Swathed in blankets, he gets a shot that allows him to breathe--for a little while at least.

It’s a depressing routine for the toddler in this sprawling, congested city. Once known as a city of a thousand minarets and elegant, tree-lined avenues by the Nile, the Cairo of today has the highest levels of lead and other air pollutants in the world.

“There are only two solutions: His parents can move away, or they can remove the cement factories,” said the frustrated doctor who gave Hassan the shot.

As she spoke, towering smokestacks spewed thick, yellow cement dust into the hazy air of the Cairo suburb of Massara.

Add to that the fumes from lead smelters and leather tanneries sprinkled throughout Cairo, plus more than 1 million cars. Ten thousand tons of garbage produced by Cairo’s 16 million people make it worse.

In short, the city is killing its people.

Although there are no firm figures on deaths, the U.S. Agency for International Developments says Cairo could save 4,000 to 16,000 lives a year by reducing the levels of particulates in the air.

Hassan’s doctor, who agreed to talk to a reporter on condition she not be identified because of fears for her job at a government clinic, said one-third of the children in Massara have lung diseases, asthma or allergies.

The government is trying to help. It recently introduced unleaded fuel for the first cars that can use it and purchased buses that run on cleaner-burning natural gas. Some cement factories have been fitted with filters, and some lead smelters have been moved out of the city.

But many people fear the effort is too little to make a dent in the problem. They worry, too, that laws against air pollution will be like Law 48 of 1982, which was meant to stop dumping of industrial waste, trash and sewage in the Nile. It has been largely ignored.

An ash-colored cloud hangs over the capital almost every day. Blue, cloudless skies that once complemented the city’s view of the river are increasingly rare.

In the southern suburbs near the factories, cement dust covers anything cleaned in a matter of seconds. Trees are wilted, and laundry set out to dry has to be covered with a canopy of plastic sheets.

The city, however, is in a bind. The government wants to clean up Cairo--or at least stop it from getting dirtier--but does not want to sacrifice much-needed development.

Officials fear that making standards too stringent or requiring costly antipollution equipment could shut down some businesses and even large cement factories--a serious worry in a country with an estimated 30% unemployment rate.

There has been an effort to move both industry and people to satellite cities around Cairo or new desert cities. But it has not been very successful because of Egyptians’ ancient habit of residing near the Nile.

In some cases, putting factories in satellite cities has added to traffic jams--and auto pollution--because people commute from Cairo to the factories outside.

“We have many environmental problems,” acknowledged Tarek Genena, director of the Technical Cooperation Office for Environment, a newly established government group.

But he added: “We have to take into consideration that we are a developing country. We need to protect natural resources and health and not slow down development.”

It is the trade-off many Third World cities face: development at all costs, followed by catastrophic environmental degradation.

In Cairo, that catastrophe is looming.

USAID says the Egyptian capital’s air has the highest levels of particulate matter and lead in the world. Other major pollutants far exceed standards in the United States or limits set by the World Health Organization.

In Massara, the children have only the narrow, unpaved streets as a playground, with the cement factories in the background.

Marwa Ahmed, a 7-year-old standing outside her home, said: “I like playing with my friends in the street, but it makes me cough and makes my eyes hurt.”