Young Egyptians battle plastic plague at startup 'TileGreen' - in pictures

Initiative hopes to aid the environment

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  Start-up TileGreen in Egypt recycles plastic waste into eco-friendly interlocking tiles used in outdoor walkways. All photos: AFP

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  Workers sort through shredded plastic waste at a workshop of the startup company "TileGreen", where it is recycled into eco-friendly interlocking tiles used in outdoor walkways, in the Ashir min Ramadan (10th of Ramadan) industrial city, about 60 kilometres east of Egypt's capital, on December 8, 2022. - Entrepreneurial young Egyptians are helping combat their country's plastic problem, making slow progress in dealing with waste that would usually end up in landfill and waterways, including the Nile. At the factory on the outskirts of Cairo, massive mounds of white, blue and black plastic is funnelled into machines, shredded and liquefied. It then emerges emerge as dark, compact bricks, as the TileGreen start-up turns even single-use plastic into outdoor pavers that can be used for walkways and garages. (Photo by Ahmed HASAN / AFP)

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  Noisy machines gobble up plastic scraps of all colours, shred them and turn them into a thick liquid

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  Each tile takes about 125 plastic bags out of the environment, says business partner Amr Shalan, 26

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  TileGreen workers sort waste. On the shores of the Nile, some fishermen now collect plastic in a project by the VeryNile group. 'They could see their catches decreasing', said project manager Hany Fawzy, 47

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  Plastic is churned in a TileGreen mixer

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  Egypt has pledged to cut its annual consumption of single-use plastic by more than half by 2030

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  A TileGreen worker prepares moulds of plastic waste. The country generates three million tonnes a year, much of which piles up in streets

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  Plastic is shredded before being recycled

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  In Egypt, activists have hailed what they see as a youth-led push for sustainability

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  The eco-friendly interlocking tiles will be used in outdoor walkways

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  More than two thirds of of Egypt's waste is 'inadequately managed', according to the World Bank

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  Plastic waste is dumped out of a mixer

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  TileGreen's tiles are 'twice as strong as concrete,' said co-founder Khaled Raafat, 24

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  A TileGreen worker prepares moulds of plastic

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  Smoke rises as the waste is melted

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