Recycling in El Gouna, Egypt

El Gouna is a complete town owned by a single family. This likely has its bad side but it definitely has its good side- they can run things exactly as they want, quickly and efficiently. Today we did the first part of our two day orientation and we visited various projects in this growing town.

They have a recycling plant and organic farm. All rubbish in the town is recycled. The tins and glass are seperated and sold to dealers in Cairo.


The UHT packages are made into recycled paper right in El Gouna. This paper is used to form paper bags used in the town to carry groceries.


Some plastic is recycled to make plastic hangers and plastic rubbish bags. I was most impressed by the recycling of plastic to make paving bricks. They cut the plastic into small pieces.


The shredded plastic is mixed with sand and heated. The mould is set up with bits of broken tiles and glass at the bottom to make the final product attractive.


Then the mixture is poured into moulds to form paving bricks.


It seems a wonderful technology. I was quite impressed by the entire recycling plant, in fact.

They also need to desalinate the water they use. In the process, they have a lot of waste water that is too salty for consumption. They have made a fish farm which uses this water.

This was a big part of Day 1 of our two day orientation.