Working for the Red Sea …

The opening of the HEPCA MRF was a great day for that environmental organisation, it’s leader Ms. Heba Shawky and the Red Sea’s environment. I have no doubt that the memory of HEPCA’s founder, Amr Ali, was topmost in everyone’s minds.

The facility aimed to provide a sustainable method of treating solid waste from the city, its suburbs and the hotels around the resort. In combination with the Governorate’s ban on single-use plastic bags, the plan is to massively reduce the environmental damage done to the Red Sea’s ecosystems, benefitting the extraordinary biodiversity that can be found therein, not least the marine turtles. Of the seven extant marine turtle species worldwide, five can be found in the Red Sea: the green, hawksbill, loggerhead, the Olive-Ridley and the leatherback turtles.

The project was also an excellent introduction to Egypt of the high quality of recycling equipment manufactured and installed by Bollegraaf and Lubo Recycling Systems and EuRec Recycling Technology.

Once again I was working with good people, not least Eslam and Harry with whom I’d started this adventure in waste – building the MRF at Smiles.

HEPCA provided an excellent operations and maintenance team who have kept the facility working since 2019, I’m proud to have worked with them and helped towards achieving HEPCA’s goals.