Why is it called Garbage City?
Mokattam village, Garbage City, at the foot of the Mokattam Mountains. The Zabbaleen (Egyptian Arabic: زبالين Zabbalīn, IPA: [zæbbæˈliːn]) is a word which literally means “garbage people” in Egyptian Arabic. The contemporary use of the word in Egyptian Arabic is to mean “garbage collectors”.
Why is there so much garbage in Cairo?
The village is notable for having nearly every space of it covered in garbage, including the streets and rooftops of the settlement. These piles of garbage are the result of the Cairo Metropolitan Area having never established an efficient garbage collecting system, despite having a population of nearly 20 million.
What is the garbage city?
Garbage City is a slum settlement at the base of Mokattam Hill on the outskirts of Cairo and inhabited by the Coptic Christians.
Who are the main inhabitants of Garbage City?
THE GARBAGE MEN, THE GIRL, AND THE GOAL With a population comprising of more than 260,000 of the city’s poorest inhabitants, the Manshiyat Naser district is home to a group of Coptic Christians known as the Zabbaleen – garbage collectors in Arabic. An estimated 70,000 of them.
What do the zabaleen do with the organic waste that they collect?
Before 2004, the zabaleen would take the rubbish they collected back to their homes on the edge of the city, sort through it, and make a living from selling the salvaged materials to factories and wholesalers. The remaining organic waste would be fed to their pigs, whose meat also brought them a steady income.
Where is zabaleen?
Cairo
Behind the high walls on the outskirts of Cairo is a mostly Coptic Christian community, known as the Zabaleen – a derogatory term for garbage men.
How much waste is recycled in Egypt?
Recycling. Egypt has a number of both formal and informal recycling initiatives. The formal sector in Egypt comprises central government, local municipalities and ministries, small enterprises, international donors and NGOs. This sector collects 810,000 tonnes of waste annually and recycles 45% of this.
How polluted is Egypt?
Cairo is the most polluted city in the world, according to the Eco Experts’ report. On average, residents of Cairo breathe in air suffused with 11.7 times the WHO recommended safe level of PM2. 5 and 14.2 times the safe level of PM10. Translation: The air is really bad and you can feel it.
Where is zabbaleen?
Waste Management as Identity. A view over the Moqattam, the mountains in the background. The Zabbaleen are a community of people who largely live in foothills of The Moqattam (المقطم), a mountain range in the south-east of Cairo, who are responsible for Cairo’s trash collection and processing.
Who are the zabaleen people?
The zabbaleen are a sub-class of poor workers living in the main cities of Egypt. They migrated to Cairo from the Nile Valley in Upper Egypt (the south of the country). Unlike most Egyptians, these peasants were not Muslim, but Coptic Christians belonging to Egypt’s native church.
What do the Zabbaleen do?
The waste processing is done collectively, and the Zabbaleen people has their own roles, either in collecting, transporting, and sorting waste. Usually, the activity of collecting and transporting waste is done by men, whereas women and children are assigned in waste-sorting.
How are the plastics recycled?
Plastics are usually recycled mechanically: they are sorted, cleaned, shredded, melted and remoulded. Each time plastic is recycled this way, its quality is degraded. When the plastic is melted, the polymer chains are partially broken down, decreasing its tensile strength and viscosity, making it harder to process.
Where is Garbage City in the outskirts of Cairo?
Garbage City is a slum settlement at the base of Mokattam Hill on the outskirts of Cairo and inhabited by the Coptic Christians. This was the first place I got to experience out of all Cairo. Right after I arrived in Egypt, I managed to meet with Jaime, Breakaway Backpacker, and we both agreed that we had to see Garbage City.
Which is the poorest slum in Cairo Egypt?
Mansheyat Naser is a slum area and home to more than 262,000 of Egypt’s poorest inhabitants, mostly Coptic Christians. It is Cairo’s main destination for garbage collectors, the Zabbaleen, who bring Cairo’s rubbish there for people to start work on recycling it.
Where does the garbage come from in Manshiyat Naser?
The city’s garbage is brought to the Garbage City in Manshiyat Naser by the Zabbaleen (garbage collectors), who then sort through the garbage to attempt to retrieve any potentially useful or recyclable items.
What kind of people live in Garbage City?
It’s populated by a community of workers called Zabbaleen, who personally collect, sort, reuse, resell or otherwise repurpose Cairo’s waste. Recently several photographers have trained their cameras upon the city, and now we see what it would really be like to live in the aftermath of our own consumption.