Nazmy is one of 50,000 zabbaleen–Coptic Christian men, women and children–who make their living off Cairo’s trash. They recycle an astounding 80 percent of the garbage they collect–far higher than the 20 percent typical of most municipalities. Their prowess has attracted international acclaim and awards. But now, as part of a longtime effort to modernize, the municipality of Cairo may put the zabbaleen out of business. Last month Spanish and Italian waste-management companies began taking over Cairo’s trash routes. The contract reportedly costs $50 million a year, but calls for recycling only 20 percent of its trash.
Cairo stands to gain cleaner streets from the deal. That’s what happened when Alexandria hired a French firm last year to haul its garbage to a landfill. “We want a technological system, following scientific –principles to get rid of the trash safely,” says Mohammed Il Leben, chairman of the Cairo Cleaning and Beautification Authority. “The zabbaleen wouldn’t be able to do this.”
Nobody disputes the need to reform Cairo’s garbage-collection system, which handles 12,800 tons of trash each day. In many neighborhoods, particularly the poorer ones, garbage piles up in irrigation canals and the smell of burning trash fills the air. The zabbaleen, though, are a bright spot in this otherwise dismal picture. They collect trash in about a third of the city–the wealthier third–which discards lots of plastic bottles, damaged appliances and other items of value. Whereas recycling in most municipalities costs more than it saves, the zabbaleen live off the resale of recyclables. In Moqattam, the largest of seven zabbaleen “Garbage City” neighborhoods, piles of scrap metal and corded cubes of flattened cardboard litter the streets. Men feed plastic bags and bottles into roaring steel machines, while their wives sort glass according to color. Profits go toward maintaining schools, clinics, running water and other local services.
Trash collecting takes its toll on health. Zabbaleen wear no protective gear when they squat in the rotting garbage, separating orange peels from rusty cans. They suffer from abnormally high rates of hepatitis and emphysema. Most disturbingly, children are put to work in the garbage almost as soon as they can walk.
To the zabbaleen, though, unhealthy work is preferable to no work at all. Their best hope may lie in the last quarter of the city, where collection is reserved for Egyptian firms. Last month the city governor agreed to allow the zabbaleen to bid for these remaining routes. If they win, at least some recyclables would provide income for the zabbaleen, rather than wind up being buried in the city’s new landfill.
