Stuck in the congested traffic of Cairo has become a daily routine that car drivers must endure everyday. Nonetheless, the slow traffic would have been bearable were it not for the increasing pollution. For pedestrians and drivers, a breath of fresh air has become a scarce luxury.

The number of pollutants has been increasing over the past few years; and the number of cars in the capital is doubling, with some three million new cars licensed every year. The strict control of emissions produced by vehicles has become vital, considering the negative effects of the dangerous gases that are transmitted, on residents of the city. "Hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide gases have proved to be very dangerous to our health. Some of these gases are colourless as well as toxic, and need to be examined by specific equipments," said engineer Mahmoud Marwan, general manager of the Vehicle Emission Test centre (VET). The test centre is situated in the urban Cairene district of Shubra Al-Kheima.

According to Engineer Essam Nada, executive director of The Arab Office for Youth and Environment (AOYE), vehicle emissions are responsible for 40 per cent of the air pollution in Egypt. AOYE statistics have revealed that 2,400 cases of early deaths occur annually, because of air pollution. There are in addition 15,000 cases of lumonia, 329,000 cases of respiratory inflammation and some eight million cases of asthma. According to the Ministry of State for Environmental Affairs (MESA), around five million vehicles roam the streets of Cairo daily. "This means that if these cars roam Cairo for only 30 minutes, they will pump approximately 600 tons of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons," Nada told Al-Ahram Weekly.

Paying one visit to Al-Abbasiya Chest Diseases Hospital, would confirm if not double, these statistics. According to Taher Gamil, a chest disease specialist at the hospital, respiratory diseases and tumours have considerably increased. "I have one-year-old patients who have asthma," he said. Gamil asserts that allergy patients are coming on a more frequent basis to the hospital, and are usually in need of large dosages of medicine, because of their breathing difficulties. "Air pollution is a major problem, and auto exhausts aggravate it," he added. Another chest specialist, Nadia Hafez, says that pollutants resulting from auto emissions affect the mucose membranes, "eventually leading to asthma and failure in breathing."

Gamil explains how all of the body systems are affected by polluted air, "no organ is immune, be it the kidneys, liver, heart, or blood. No system is immune."

Laws to control air pollution, especially that resulting from car emissions, exist, although their outcome is debatable. According to the year 2005's new environmental laws concerning vehicle emissions, hydrocarbons must not exceed 600 part per million (ppm) for vehicles manufactured in 2003 or after this date. As for the carbon monoxide generated from vehicles, 2.5 per cent is the allowed percentage for vehicles manufactured before 2003, and 4.5 for vehicles produced in 2003 and later. Vehicles using diesel or solar's opacity shouldn't exceed 30 per cent, regardless of the year in which they were manufactured.

The VET, founded by MESA in 1998 as part of the Cairo Air Improvement Project (CAIP), "has upheld many tasks. These include the calibration of equipments used for environmental examination, and the technical examination of vehicles that fail to abide by the laws for vehicle emission," according to Atef Yakoub, a MESA official. Through VET, protocols between the MESA and companies that have a fleet of buses like the Cairo Transport Authority are processed. "We have examined 5,000 buses so far, and finalised their technical reports. However, we don't repair, we only examine whether they are compatible with the law or not, and we can guide them to the best ways to repair their engines," Marwan explained. However, the MESA does not have any legal authority; their job is only about checking and reporting. So, it is all in the hands of the Ministry of Interior, when it comes to enforcing the law.

There is hope, however, in traffic Law 4 and the 2000 decree of the minister of interior, since they state that any car exceeding the allowed percentages will not be allowed to renew its licence. If a car stopped at a checkpoint and fails the environmental examination, its license is revoked. Consequently, a case is filed against the car owner, and sent to the prosecutor general's office. The situation is only redressed when a report by the officials in charge states that the car has complied with the legal percentage.

But while in theory the laws, checkpoints and reports do exist, when it comes to actual reality, the system is almost dysfunctional.

In Giza governorate's Faisel traffic unit, rows of cars were waiting to be checked in order to obtain their licences in a small piece of land under Faisel Bridge. An angry citizen, Safwat Mohamed, who had spent a few tiring hours at the unit exploded while trying to transfer the property of his car, "although it had undergone an environmental check the day before, I was forced to buy new forms in order to repeat the same procedure."

Another car owner was oblivious to any procedures, and had no clue about the environmental check-ups, "I have an employee from the car agency, he handles everything," he said indifferently.

Asking the engineer responsible for the environmental car check whether new cars also need to pass the environmental check-ups, he seemed to have a way out for all situations, saying, "yes we check all cars. But we do it really fast, don't worry."

However, Ashraf Mahmoud, a car owner who was waiting for his turn said, "I have never seen any engineer use equipment in examining the cars that I licensed." Engineer Marwan, on the other hand, asserts that environmental examination equipment worth LE6 million has been provided by MESA and distributed to traffic units in governorates of both the Delta and Upper Egypt.

However, the problem of pollution is also compounded by the prevalent lack of awareness on the part of drivers. The smoggy street of Faisal is one of the most crowded thoroughfares of the Governorate of Giza, swarming as it is with hundreds of dilapidated microbuses that are in dire need of adhering to environmental standards.

Lighting a cigarette as he waited to load passengers onto his microbus, Hani Sayed, a driver for the past 12 years, divulged how he solves his vehicle's problems. "If my vehicle engine is sound, I do the environmental examination without a problem. If my car is fuming though, I give the traffic employee around LE100, and he handles everything," Sayed told the Weekly, "I would have the license in my pocket by the end of the day." But is Sayed aware of the health hazards that his vehicle is causing to the public? He knows, he says, but then adds: "Usually if my car is fuming, it will need around LE3,000 for the engine to be fixed. I would rather pay LE100 as a bribe than fix it."

Marwan says that the main problem faced by environmental regulators is the public's lack of awareness, and, what he terms "the absence of conscience". He explains that environmental checkups entail simple procedures that take no more than a few minutes. "If a car is fuming, it is usually because the gas isn't burning efficiently, and it is in need of more oxygen," he said, "it is a minor problem, and when the driver fixes it, not only does he save the environment, but he also economises on his petrol."

Raising public awareness of the hazards of pollution has thus been the prime target of AOYE, in cooperation with the Service Centre for NGOs. In 2004, the two organisations implemented a six-month project to increase awareness among people, with the aim of improving Cairo air. This entailed organising workshops and seminars, in addition to setting up two centres for examining and fixing the failed vehicles. But according to Nada, there is much more to be done: "The problem is that people don't feel responsible towards the environment. It will take more than a six-month project for such a feeling to develop," said Nada, adding, "unless the whole city wakes up and takes responsibility, the problems are going to multiply on all levels."