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
A worker dumps plastic waste out of a mixer before it is to be recycled into eco-friendly interlocking tiles used in outdoor walkways at a workshop of the startup company "TileGreen."
Image: Ahmed Hasan / AFP
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.