The hospital indoor environment includes several unwanted elements including a mix of chemical pollutants, biological contaminants and a high physical and mental stress for all the staff offering medical services. Infection risks are increased by direct contact with sick people in addition to needle and medical equipment punctures conveying blood-transmitted diseases. Although infection control measures are considered seriously they are often inadequate because of concomitant construction problems and ingress of outdoor pollutants. This is especially so in metropolitan areas where the hospitals are engulfed in an urban environment and surrounded by small scale industrial pollution and traffic air emissions. Every country and indeed every hospital has its own problems and this paper describes the progress of an environmental integrated management scheme initiated for the indoor environment of hospitals to provide greater control to protect the hospital staff from occupational hazards impacting their health, their home contacts and their patients. The scheme started with the preparation of an environmental assessment for newly built hospitals. For those hospitals currently operating the scheme comprised the organisation of an environmental health group and the preparation of a checklist of the environmental sources of indoor pollutants, contaminants and sources of infection and occupational health hazards. An environmental audit was conducted with monitoring for sources of environmental deterioration. There was a follow up for the adoption of hazardous waste management and cleaning and disinfection protocols. A reporting system was set up within the scheme which included follow up actions. The problems of adopting the system are discussed with methodologies for their solutions.

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Environmental issues such as environmental attitudes are important socioenvironmental subjects for the non-Western countries such as Egypt. This study aimed to determine levels of attitude, awareness, and concern toward environmental issues among Alexandria Sanitary and Drainage Company (ASDCO) workers and stakeholders. A total of 284 participants (199 [70%] workers and 85 [30%] stakeholders) were surveyed by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale of environmental attitude. Descriptive and analytic statistics were applied, and significance was considered at p ≤ .05. Respondents showed low awareness to environmental laws and guidelines (23.8% ± 33.2%), neutral attitude toward ecological issues (66.1% ± 6.2%), and high concern about different environmental problems (74.5% ± 26.3%). Awareness score was significantly and positively associated with attitude (χ 2 = 8.63, p = .013) and worry (χ 2 = 8.68, p = .013) scores. Respondents are quite aware that legislation is the key role in protection of environment. This study reflects low level of knowledge and high concern to different environmental problems. Knowledge is consistently and positively related to attitudes. Planning training and management needs to be linked to the environmental goals and objectives of the company.

Egypt is encouraging micro-scale enterprises as proved to be one of the most important reasons of economic growth. Most of the annual milk production is processed in micro-scale dairy enterprises located in squatter areas with high health risks and negative environmental impact. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of in-plant control measures in controlling lead and cadmium levels in dairy products from nine Egyptian micro-scale enterprises. The results revealed that white cheese enterprises had the highest mean lead and cadmium contents; both in their raw milk (0.712 and 0.134 mg/L, respectively) and final products (0.419 and 0.061 mg/kg). Higher compliance percentages were found with cadmium levels specified in the Egyptian standards than with lead levels and ranged from 59.4% in raw milk to 100% in dry milk for cadmium levels and from 8.3% in white cheese to 66.7% in ice cream for lead; moreover, none of the collected raw milk samples were complying with the lead levels. After implementation of in-plant control measures, lower lead levels were found in all samples with reduction percentages ranging from 35.2% in raw milk from the ice cream enterprises to 73.2% in yoghurt; moreover, higher percentages of samples complied with cadmium levels. This study highlights the urgent need for applying in-plant control measures to the Egyptian micro-scale dairy enterprises to improve both safety and quality of their products.