CAIRO: An inspection by the Ministry of Environment of 16, 581 vehicles’ exhaust found that 2,727 of them (16.7 percent) exceed the emission limits, Youm7 reported Thursday.
The ministry has suspended the vehicle licenses until the owners fix their cars.
The ministry also recently referred a total of 135 factories in Cairo to prosecution for violating air quality standards in a campaign that surveyed 136.
As the rice crop harvest has begun, farmers as well are under increased scrutiny as many of them tend to burn the waste of rice straw, which creates a pall of dark clouds that forms the recurring phenomenon that is known as the “Black Clouds.”
Egypt’s ministry of environment has pledged to reduce by 70 percent the “black cloud” crisis that is to blanket Egypt’s sky in two months during rice cultivation season, and reportedly raises the air pollution and causes severe respiratory diseases.