CAIRO — In August, the Ministry of Environment declared a state of emergency to deal with a thick layer of air pollution — referred to by locals as the "black cloud" — that forms and hangs over Egypt at the end of every year as a result of farmers’ burning rice straw that accumulates and remains after the harvest. The ministry launched several campaigns to discourage this activity.

On Sept. 17, Minister of Environment Khaled Fahmy announced the hiring of garbage guards to monitor the burning of refuse, another source of the black cloud. The garbage guard positions are the latest addition to the Ministry of Environment's efforts, which include imposing fines, to control these sources of air pollution.

Fahmy’s statement was met by a barrage of sarcastic criticism on social media and citizen complaints about the suffocating air and environmental pollution in several regions, including Cairo's Abu Rgeila slums, Minya al-Qamh in Al-Sharqiyah governorate and El Marg in the Cairo governorate, among others. On Sept. 19, the new prime minister, Sherif Ismail, ordered his ministers to find a radical solution to the problem of garbage collection to prevent the waste from being burned.

The garbage crisis moved toward critical mass after the Jan. 25 revolution, with waste piling up due to state neglect. People were left with no other option than to burn their garbage, negatively affecting the environment and contributing to the black cloud. On Aug. 9, the Ministry of Environment pointed out to Egyptians that their garbage burning was raising the atmospheric temperature.