CAIRO: Egypt has confirmed plans to use biogas technology to meet its energy needs.

Biogas is a renewable energy source that uses gases produced from raw materials including agricultural and municipal waste. It is already used in hundreds of places around the world.

Karima Hussein, an official at the Egyptian Ministry of Environment, told Arab News: “After the end of the climate summit held in Sharm El-Sheikh in November, the state took up the waste-disposal issue, which is closely related to climate change. After many successful experiments, implementation was proposed by the ministry.”

She added: “Biogas technology relies on recycling solid and liquid waste from sewage waste, plant and animal waste, and garbage economically and healthily to protect the environment from pollution with the production of a new and renewable source of energy that contributes, to a large extent, in rationing the consumption of traditional energy such as petroleum.

“Biogas technology is the embodiment of the idea of a circular economy and a green economy, (in line with) the adoption of the law regulating waste management in Egypt.”

The project “is based not only on integrated waste management but also on partnership with civil society, in addition to considering the issue of waste from an economic perspective, not just from an environmental perspective,” she continued.

Dr. Tariq Al-Arabi, CEO of the Waste Management Regulatory Agency, told Arab News: “Work on 1,660 household biogas units has been completed in many governorates.”

With regard to electronic waste, Al-Arabi said: “There are 18 factories that have been issued licenses from the Ministry of Environment to recycle electronic waste, and work on a medical-waste system with the ministry to update the technologies used in medical waste recycling inside hospitals, and work on a system to involve the private sector in the disposal of medical waste.”