Schools taking the lead for a cleaner future 🌍
This International E-Waste Day (October 14), we celebrate students and schools across Egypt who are turning awareness into action through the One Circle Challenge – an interactive competition that encourages schools to collect e-waste and compete for prizes worth up to 25,000 L.E.
Launched earlier this month, the challenge began with the Lycée Français du Caire – Mearag as the first school to take part in this nationwide sustainability initiative. Through hands-on activities and fun awareness sessions led by E.Tadweer and Sofrecom, students learned how small steps – like buying refurbished old phones and chargers – can make a big difference for the planet.
Learning through play 🧩
At the Mearag campus, students from Grades 8 and 10 joined interactive awareness sessions, where they discovered how devices, from phones and chargers to laptops, can be repaired, refurbished, and eventually recycled to extend their life and reduce waste.
Through a fun, game-based activity called “Spin the Wheel,” students competed in teams, answered questions about e-waste and the circular economy, and realized how awareness and action together can shape a more sustainable future.
🎁 Each session ended with a round of smiles and symbolic gifts, but the real reward was watching students connect learning, action, and environmental responsibility in a tangible way.
A challenge with real impact
The One Circle E-Waste Challenge runs from October 5 to 26, 2025, encouraging schools to:
- Collect unused or broken electronic devices
- Host awareness sessions for students
- Set up drop-off points on campus
- Report weekly collections
- Compete for the top three prizes – EGP 25K, 15K, and 10K – to fund their own green initiatives
Every phone, tablet, or charger collected brings us one step closer to a cleaner, smarter Egypt and empowers students to lead the change toward a circular economy.
What’s next?
Following the success at Lycée Français du Caire, more schools across Greater Cairo are invited to join the challenge in the coming weeks.
🏆 Stay tuned as we announce the winning schools of this year’s challenge soon and celebrate those leading the way toward a cleaner, greener Egypt.
About the “One Circle” pilot in Egypt:
The pilot “One Circle”, part of the global “Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains” project, targets the ICT and electronics value chain in Egypt. Its ambition is to create a broad alliance of partners – local SMEs and multinationals – committed to transforming ICT and electronics towards a more responsible development model, for the benefit of society as a whole. Led by UNIDO, Orange, Nokia, and Cordon, and supported on the ground by e-TADWEER and Haya Karima Foundation, the initiative focuses on supporting the adoption of circular economy practices, building local infrastructure to extend the life of ICT and electronics, and creating local capacity-building opportunities for sustainable change.
About SWITCH2CE:
The global Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains (SWITCH2CE) project is an initiative that assists EU multinational companies and their suppliers from developing countries to switch to more circular economy approaches and practices in three selected value chains: Plastic Packaging, Textile & Garments, and ICT and Electronics. The overall objective is to support the “Transformation towards a circular economy”, including to contribute to sustainable growth, low carbon and climate resilient development, decent jobs creation, and safer, healthier, and pollution-free environment.
SWITCH2CE is co-funded by the European Union and the Government of Finland, and implemented by UNIDO, in collaboration with Chatham House, Circle Economy, and the European Investment Bank. Learn more at: www.switchtocircular.eu
