Amid narrow alleys in which trucks loaded with tons of waste are piled up, thousands of workers in Cairo's "Zabbaleen Neighborhood" continue to sort the waste of more than 20 million people living in the Egyptian capital, or rather in the Greater Cairo region, in the absence of an effective public system for collecting and sorting garbage.
Residents of the neighbourhood, located in the Manshiyet Nasser informal settlement at the foot of Mount Mokattam, rely on waste recycling as a main source of income, while the trade in recycled plastic has witnessed a noticeable recovery in recent months. The irony is that the reason, according to a report prepared from Cairo by Paul Jens, correspondent for the German Channel 1 (ARD), is due to the repercussions of the war in Iran.
An informal economy manages Cairo's waste
In Egypt, waste collectors are known as “zabaleen,” and they constitute an informal sector that undertakes a large part of the waste collection and sorting process in Cairo. Mixed shipments of plastic, paper, glass, metal, and food scraps arrive in the neighborhood daily, to be manually sorted inside the homes and small workshops spread throughout the area.
In the reportage, which was published this month on the Tages Show website of the German Channel 1, one of the workers, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of social discrimination, describes the working conditions as extremely harsh, noting that she deals daily with household waste and strong odors that cause her health problems. She says that she has been practicing this profession since her childhood, where she separates different materials in preparation for selling them to merchants and recycling factories.
From garbage to recycling plants
Despite the difficulty of the work, some workers succeeded in building profitable projects within the neighborhood. Among them is Rizq Youssef, who employs workers to collect and sort garbage coming from all over Cairo.
The man manages waste collection and sorting operations, and also supervises plastic recycling lines that begin with sorting it, then grinding it, melting it, and turning it into plastic granules used in multiple industries.
War raises plastic prices
Rizk Youssef points out that the prices of recycled plastic have risen significantly over the past period, explaining that regional tensions and crises, including the Iranian war and the subsequent disturbances in the markets, have led to an increase in demand for recycled materials.
He said: “We have benefited from the Iranian crisis,” before adding: “Of course, we are fundamentally against war and we do not like it.” He added, according to the report: “When a crisis occurs, prices rise and the demand for labor increases.” According to him, the price of a kilogram of plastic jumped from about one pound to five pounds, which provided better income opportunities for some workers in this field.
Between wealth and poverty
Some scavengers make a lot of money from garbage, and at some entrances to the neighborhood, new, shiny, luxurious cars are lined up, reflecting the amount of profits made by a limited number of workers in the trade and recycling of waste.
Despite this, the majority of families are still living in difficult economic conditions. Many residents of the neighborhood confirm that educational and work opportunities outside the area are limited, which makes it difficult for new generations to break the cycle of poverty associated with this profession.
A closed community on the fringes of the city
According to Paul Jens, more than 100,000 waste collectors live in the neighborhood, and some residents also depend on raising pigs in addition to sorting garbage, as the food scraps collected from the waste are used as animal feed, which provides an additional source of income for families.
Garbage pickers consider themselves a close-knit community, especially in the face of discrimination they feel comes from outside the neighborhood. Most Egyptians avoid this area, and have not seen the extent of the work taking place there with their own eyes, nor do they wish to have any connection with it, according to the German channel's correspondent.
“If it were not for the scavengers, Cairo would have drowned in waste.”
Despite the negative view that the area's residents face from many Egyptians, workers in the neighborhood confirm that their role is essential in keeping Cairo clean. While trucks continue to flow into “Garbage City” around the clock, scavengers continue their hard daily work, believing that the capital would not have maintained its cleanliness without their continuous efforts.
In the city that never sleeps, the Zabbaleen Quarter remains an invisible part of Cairo's daily life cycle, where waste is transformed into an economic resource, and thousands of people continue to work in grueling conditions to keep the Middle East's most populous city clean.
Reviewed by: Abdo Jamil Al-Mekhlafi
