Salwa Samir reports on AL Monitor about the garbage situation in Egypt:
Source: Egypt Independent
An estimated 75 million tons of trash end up on Egypt’s streets every year, according to local media. The trash includes industrial waste, some of which eventually makes it into the Nile. To get rid of this waste, the country needs 2 billion Egyptian pounds ($111 million) every year. The Egyptian capital alone produces 19,000 tons of waste daily that is thrown onto the streets.
That sure seems like a lot of garbage, doesn’t it? Salwa gives a short history on Egyptian garbage collection:
Between the 1940 and 1990s, waste collection in Cairo was based on garbage collectors known as the Zabaleen, who hailed from rural areas and settled in a slum settlement at the base of Mokattam Hills on the outskirts of Cairo.
Since then, the Zabaleen have been roaming Cairo using their donkey carts or trucks to collect rubbish either from the streets or by knocking on the doors of residents to take their waste in return for a humble sum of money.
Then they bring the collected trash to their neighborhood, which is named after them, and sort it out. They sell anything that can be recycled and leave the organic leftovers to feed their pigs.
And then swine flu hit, and the pigs were ordered killed by the government. And then another blow:
In 2003, waste management faced another problem when the government contracted foreign companies to collect garbage. The doormen of each residential or office building collected the rubbish and put it in large refuse bins in front of the buildings so the foreign contractors’ garbage trucks could pick it up.
However, after 10 years of participation in solid waste management in Cairo, the companies’ performance has been nothing but a dismal failure.
The balance of the article concerns the attemtps of a local NGO to promote recycling and other uses for waste. I wonder if the Zabaleen could be returned to service, though.
