Toxins From Alexandria Refractories Plant Causes Egyptians Slow Death

This investigation reveals that emissions from the Alexandria Company for Refractories plant have exceeded legal limits, based on the Egyptian Ministry of Environment report for 2022. This represents an environmental risk that threatens the health of those living around the factory, which is in the centre of a densely populated area.

The ceaseless sound of heavy machinery, producing an unbearable noise, and thick clouds of dust covering windows and surfaces with a suffocating gray film. This is what residents of El Hadara El Gadida, in Alexandria Governorate, have to live with, because of polluting emissions from the Alexandria Company for Refractories. These pose an environmental risk to the health of people living near the factory, which is located in the middle of a densely populated area.

In one of the grocery stores directly opposite the wall of the factory, thirty-year-old Muhammad Gamal is trying to wipe away the dust that has accumulated on his goods, something he says he has to do several times a day.

Difficulties of life and the high cost of housing forced Gamal move to El Hadara El Gadida to live and work several years ago. He got married there and had two children, he sums up his situation by saying: “We were forced into this. I didn’t have enough to afford to buy an apartment in a better place.”

This refractories production plant belongs to the Alexandria Company for Refractories (ACR), a subsidiary of the Metallurgical Industries Holding Company (MIH) in Alexandria Governorate. The ACR was established in 1938, and its headquarters are at Nozha, El Barr El Qebli, Alexandria. It is 99.8 percent owned by the holding company.

Most of the people living around the factory suffer from a range of respiratory diseases. They include 47-year-old Magda Ibrahim Al-Damrani, who has lived there since she was married at the age of 17.

Magda has been undergoing treatment for allergic asthma for over six years. Doctors told her that the main cause of her condition was exposure to dust. She is not the only one to suffer from allergic asthma, which also affects her daughter, her sister-in-law and her husband’s nephews.

Magda says that she has to wear a medical mask while cleaning the house to stop having complications from her condition. The dust from the factory permeates into every corner of the house, even though she keeps the windows closed all the time.

The most recent report from the Ministry of Environment, for 2022, shows air pollution rates detected by the National Air Pollution Monitoring Network. Levels of pollution higher than the permitted limit were found at more than one monitoring station across several governorates. These included two such stations in Alexandria Governorate, one in the city of Borg El Arab, and the other in the Bashayer El Khair area, which is the closest to the ACR factory, being only seven kilometers away.

Also at Bashayer El Khair, the concentration of solid particles with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers reached 41 micrograms per cubic metre – close to the upper legal limit of 50 micrograms per cubic metre.

On the sixth floor of a building opposite the factory sits Mohammed Ramadan, surrounded by his four sons, and bemoans the damage the factory has caused him. His children have to go and see the doctor day after day, an impossible financial burden for him. At the same time, he cannot move home, because that would cost him even more.

Mohammed has been struggling psychologically for several years, since his mother died from a respiratory condition which he says was brought on by dust. She breathed her last, right in front of him, an image engraved in his memory, and one he fears could be repeated with any one of his children.

The death of Mohammed’s mother was not the first among those living in the area, and will not be the last, according to Magda Al-Damrani. She well remembers how her neighbour’s daughter died from an asthmatic attack a few years ago. This incident prompted local people to file a complaint demanding repeatedly that the factory be moved, but to no avail.

El-Hadra and Ibrahimiya – the areas closest to the factory and the most affected by it – are part of Alexandria’s Bab Sharq neighbourhood, which is in turn part of the city’s Wasat district and accounts for almost half of its population.

According to data issued by the National Population Council, Wasat is the district with the highest mortality rate for children under five in the entire governorate and ranks second to El-Gomrok as the district with the highest neonatal mortality rate. Wasat also has the highest general mortality rate in the whole of Alexandria Governorate.

According to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) Bab Sharq is also the area with the highest general mortality rate in Wasat and ranks second to Sidi Gaber as the district with the highest mortality rate in the entire governorate.

According to CAPMAS, respiratory diseases are the second most common cause of death in Alexandria Governorate, which ranks second after Cairo and ahead of Giza as the district with the greatest number of deaths from respiratory diseases in the whole of Egypt.

The harm to human health caused by the ACR plant is not limited to people living nearby but of course extends to those working there, according to an official at the factory whom we preferred not to name.

He highlighted exposure to, and inhalation of, fine dust particles as a major risk for the factory workers, and one which has led to many contracting pulmonary ossification and having to retire because of the condition. He stressed that all people at the plant, even office staff, were at risk of developing this condition.

Attempts over recent years by the Environmental Affairs Agency in Alexandria Governorate have failed to resolve this crisis, according to one of the agency’s officials. He said that the agency had made several inspections of the factory and taken legal measures against it over a number of environmental violations, but to no avail.

The official - whom we preferred not to name - explained that, under the Industrial Development Law of 2018, the Industrial Development Authority is the only body that has the legal power to close down or take other action against industrial establishments.

We contacted the Ministry of Environment to try and ascertain its position on the factory, and to find out if it had taken any measures against it or was in the process of doing so. But up to the date this report is published, we have had no response.

Trapped between official intransigence and ineffective legal measures, people living close to the Alexandria refractories plant try constantly to protect themselves from its emissions. They keep their windows and doors shut throughout the day, but dust particles still manage to find their way into every corner of their homes. The result is that having just one day free of noise or dust is the stuff of dreams.

This investigation was produced by "Ozon" with support from ARIJ.