Work commissioned by government bodies and development programmes tends to produce something that will be applied by other people: a strategy, a set of guidelines, a master plan or a training programme. That changes what quality means. The deliverable has to be usable by institutions with varying capacity, defensible to a funder, and specific enough to the Egyptian context to survive contact with implementation.
When we are engaged in this sector
- Governorate or national waste management strategy and master planning
- Development of technical guidelines, standards or labelling criteria
- Circular economy and resource efficiency studies, including electrical and electronic waste
- Capacity building and training programmes for industry or public bodies
- Baseline studies and sector mapping that inform policy or programme design
What we deliver
- Solid waste management master plans at governorate and regional scale
- Technical guidelines development, including hazardous fractions and product labelling criteria
- Circular economy, recycling and resource efficiency studies and market assessment
- Sector mapping, including formal and informal recycling activity
- Sustainable industry training and technical assistance programmes
- Baseline data collection and analysis to support policy and programme decisions
How we approach this work
The recurring risk in programme work is a document that reads well and cannot be implemented. Guidelines and strategies are more likely to be used when they are written against the institutions, budgets, markets and enforcement capacity that actually exist, and when the evidence behind each recommendation is visible to the people who will have to apply it.
The Egyptian context for this sector
Egypt regulates waste through dedicated legislation and a national waste management regulatory authority, and a significant share of sector development is delivered through programmes funded by international partners. Work in this space therefore has two audiences at once: the institution that must implement the output, and the funder that must be satisfied the output is sound. Guidelines written for one audience and not the other tend to fail with both.
Questions we are asked in this sector
What makes a waste master plan implementable rather than theoretical?
Grounding it in measured generation, existing collection capacity, actual budget envelopes and the institutional arrangements that exist rather than the ones that would be ideal. A plan that assumes capacity, offtake markets or enforcement that are not present will not survive its first budget cycle. Phasing it so that early stages are achievable is usually more valuable than an optimal end state.
Why does informal sector mapping matter for recycling policy?
Because in many streams the informal sector already performs a large share of collection and sorting, and policy that ignores it either fails or displaces activity without replacing its function. Mapping establishes who does what, at what volumes and through which routes, which is the basis for deciding whether to formalise, integrate or supersede that activity.
How should technical guidelines be validated before release?
By testing them against the people who will apply them. A guideline that is technically correct but assumes equipment, laboratory access, staffing or enforcement capacity that the target institutions do not have will not be used. Review with implementing bodies before finalisation surfaces those constraints while they can still be designed around.
Selected projects in this sector
- Development of Guidelines for Green Label for Packaging Products — Development of green label guidelines for packaging products including cartons, aluminum, glass, paper, and steel.
- Development of Guidelines for Green Label for Plastic Products — Development of green label guidelines for plastic products including plastic packaging as intermediate products.
- Preparing Master Plans of Solid Waste Management for Qalyoubia, New Valley, Red Sea and South Sinai — Preparation of solid waste management master plans for four governorates as part of Egypt's national solid waste management strategy.
- Guidelines for Hazardous Plastics Collection, Transportation, Treatment and Disposal — Development of guidelines for hazardous plastic waste management including collection, segregation, transportation, treatment, and disposal.
- Assessment of E-Waste Problematic Fractions — Assessment of problematic hazardous fractions in e-waste streams and identification of safe management solutions and EPR models.
- Business Opportunities in Formal Sector WEEE Recycling — Mapping of the formal WEEE recycling sector in Egypt to identify facility numbers, sizes, and geographic distribution.
- Mapping of Informal Sector WEEE Recycling in Greater Cairo — Mapping of the informal WEEE recycling sector in Greater Cairo to identify its size and geographic distribution.