Garbage city. Cairo's Garbage City is the worst place in the world, your brain will be crushed here (Egypt)
About four years ago, shortly before the revolution in Tahrir, I already had the opportunity to visit this undoubtedly hellish place in the eastern part of Cairo. At that time, I had not yet “mastered” the dirtiest and poorest country in the world - and therefore believed that the Cairo city of garbage collectors, called “Zaballeen” (in Arabic: زبالين) was the apocalypse accomplished. No, this is not just a dirty suburb of Cairo with a population of 100 thousand, where it’s hard to breathe from the stench of rotting garbage, and you have to walk over the garbage scattered everywhere. This the whole system, a way of life and an insular Coptic Christian community that has been scavenging for a century and a half. It’s hard to comprehend, but to this day the garbage of a gigantic metropolis of almost 30 million is collected and disposed of almost exclusively by “zaballins”, and everything is done by hand right under the windows of the houses in which they live. They drag all the garbage from all over the city into their neighborhood, dump it in giant piles and begin sorting, separating paper from food, iron from glass, wood from polyethylene.
Can you imagine what would happen if all the garbage from your city was taken into your yard and dumped in a heap? Can you imagine what the smell will be? Moreover, garbage also has an inevitable detrimental effect on the health of people living near it. Walking around this place, I kept asking myself the question - what is the level of morbidity in these places, what kind of epidemiological situation? Looking ahead, I’ll add that after just a couple of hours of walking around this place, my clothes not only stank, but my nose was filled with black dirt, my eyes itched, and in the evening I started coughing and sneezing. Judging by the very clumsy and gloomy people rummaging through the garbage, they do not find anything joyful in their lot. Meanwhile, garbage life has its own clear system, invisible at first glance.
Is there life in garbage?
First of all, each family has its own pickup truck, which they use to collect garbage. What is brought is dumped in the basement of the first floor, where primary processing. The whole family gets involved: women, children, old people. They pull out more or less valuable things from the pile, such as: a chair leg, bottles, a leaky kettle, cardboard boxes, burnt out light bulbs, pieces of wire. What is selected is transferred above, to the second floor, where the cardboard is sorted into packages, bottles into boxes, the kettle is repaired, and so on. Everything that is not subject to any reuse- burns a little to the side. A terrible stench from burning garbage hangs over the block, creating a depressing smog.
It is noteworthy that the Zaballeen are exclusively Coptic Christians, which is something of a paradox for Egypt, where there is a small Coptic community (7-8% general population) is precisely the most advanced in the context of education and standard of living. It is difficult to say why it turned out that these are the people who do this dirty and little-respected work, but the fact remains a fact.
Zaballin are quite friendly, but their friendliness has its limits: you should not perceive them as monkeys climbing around in a pile of garbage. No, no one will beat you just because you came to their neighborhood. But they certainly have an innate complex of being unloved and persecuted by anyone. Garbage collectors are one of the most despised professions in the city: always dirty, tired, gloomy. They know how others perceive them, and therefore a tourist wandering in with a camera, taking pictures of their garbage and themselves, does not evoke the most friendly feelings. To better understand this nuance, ask yourself the question: how would the residents of a city dump react to a strange guy with an expensive camera photographing them against the backdrop of garbage? Therefore, when visiting this place, you should show respect for their hard and dirty work and remember that these are people just like you and me, and not animals for colorful photography.
Future prospects
Everything in the world changes, and the eternal city of Cairo is no exception. Obviously, it is impossible for a situation in which a giant metropolis like Cairo did not have any more or less modern system for the removal and disposal of waste. What was acceptable in the 19th century is absolutely wild in the 21st century. Meanwhile, in Cairo to this day, 50% of all garbage is manually transported to the city of Zaballionov and stored there. The eastern part of Cairo has long been declared an environmental disaster zone, since the Zaballeen are physically unable to cope with the growing piles of garbage. In Egypt, only one place is considered the epicenter of the spread of hepatitis - the city of Cairo scavengers, and it is here that last years a case of leprosy infection has been identified. According to statistics, Cairo generates 6.5 thousand tons of garbage per day, of which 3-3.5 thousand tons are collected by zaballeens. But they are not able to dispose of all waste properly. The Al-Ahram newspaper talks about 500 tons of plastic that the Zaballeen simply burn open method, from what over eastern part Black plumes of smoke and the stench of burning plastic constantly appear in Cairo.
It is obvious that a global solution to the problem of urban waste disposal should have been made long ago, rather than relying on the hardworking Zaballins, who have long been out of step with the spirit of the times. One may ask the question: why has a network of environmentally friendly plants for processing cellulose, copper, plastic and glass not yet been created in Cairo? After all, this is not only extremely important for the ecology of the people of Cairo, but also profitable as a business in itself. After all, the cost of collecting garbage is negligible, and when processed, the garbage turns into absolutely normal and familiar household goods. Alas, the chaos and endemic corruption in Egyptian society are stronger than any reasonable innovative ideas. In addition, the construction of such enterprises will inevitably lead to widespread unemployment among hundreds of thousands of garbage workers and increased social tension in a city where not everything is going well. And if so, then the eternal city of Cairo will suffocate for a long time. own waste, and the walls of ancient temples and palaces (not to mention the health of the townspeople!) will be deeply ingrained by toxic dust from burning landfills.
Sponsor of my trip to Egypt - company
May 26th, 2016 , 01:29 pm
Original taken from masterok in Trash Planet
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Eastern Garbage Patch - Eastern Garbage Continent, or Pacific Trash Vortex - Pacific Garbage Patch) is a giant accumulation of anthropogenic garbage in the northern part Pacific Ocean, where deposits of plastic and other waste brought by the waters of the North Pacific current system are concentrated. Approximate estimates areas vary from 700 thousand to 15 million square meters. km or more (from 0.41% to 8.1% total area Pacific Ocean). There are probably over one hundred million tons of trash in this area.
It is also suggested that the garbage continent consists of two combined areas. Scientists estimate that about 80% of waste comes from land-based sources ( East Coast Asia and West Coast North America), 20% is released from the decks of ships on the high seas.
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The concentration of small plastic particles in the upper layers of the garbage continent is one of the highest in the World Ocean. Unlike biodegradable waste, plastic only breaks down into small particles when exposed to light, while maintaining its polymer structure.
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More and more fine particles are concentrated in the surface layer of the ocean, and as a result, marine organisms living here begin to eat them, confusing them with plankton. A large number of durable plastic ends up in stomachs seabirds and animals in particular sea turtles and black-footed albatrosses.
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Remains of a dark-backed (Laysan) albatross chick that was fed plastic by its parents; the chick could not remove it from the body, which led to death either from hunger or suffocation
On the right is a turtle that fell into a plastic ring as a child and grew up in it.
In addition to directly harming animals, floating waste can absorb organic pollutants from the water, including PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloromethylmethane) and PAHs (polyaromatic hydrocarbons). Some of these substances are not only toxic, but their structure is similar to the hormone estradiol, which leads to hormonal imbalance in the poisoned animal. Ultimately toxic substances can also enter the body of a person who has eaten poisoned fish.
In addition to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, there are four more giant garbage accumulations in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean, each of which, together with the Great Pacific Ocean, corresponds to one of the five main systems of ocean currents.
Maldives! Heaven on earth, isn't it? Remember how I showed them to you and everyone admired them in unison! Who would have thought that the photo below is also the Maldives.
I’ll tell you about the famous garbage island in the Pacific Ocean below, but it’s hard to imagine that a similar island, only in the literal sense of the word, is located in the very center paradise called Maldives. The tourism industry here is one of the most developed in the world, so it is not surprising that a lot of garbage is generated. And how do you think the Maldives government has solved this problem? The garbage is simply taken to a separate island - Thilafushi
And maybe no one would have known about this if not for the news that the removal of garbage to this island was suspended, since a huge amount of it had accumulated there, and ocean pollution had begun. Waste ends up in the water and replenishes the famous landfill of the Pacific garbage island.
What's even more interesting is that this artificial island called Thilafushi is located just 7 kilometers from the capital of the Maldives. But this is not a resort at all, there is no snow-white sand and clear water- instead you can only see mountains of garbage
The main suppliers of waste stored here are luxury hotels. Local residents rummage through piles of garbage, trying to find something edible or sellable. And there is often a cloud of dirty smog over the island. Now the government is trying to take measures to remove and dispose of excess waste. What will it be? Perhaps they will find some new suitable island
In general, the rules require the delivery of waste in sorted form for further processing, but hotels simply dump it into a general pile, and unscrupulous boatmen, who are too lazy to wait several hours in line to dump garbage, simply throw it into the water. The garbage that does end up on the island is burned directly in the open air, but it’s still not possible to burn and recycle everything.
Over the years, the authorities’ promises to build a waste processing plant here have remained promises, and now the problem of environmental pollution is more acute than ever
And now about the now famous Pacific garbage island.
“Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, “Pacific Trash Vortex”, “North Pacific Gyre”, “Pacific Garbage Island”, as they call it giant island from garbage, which is growing at a gigantic pace. There has been talk about garbage island for more than half a century, but virtually no action has been taken. Meanwhile, irreparable damage is being caused to the environment, and entire species of animals are becoming extinct. There is a high probability that a moment will come when nothing can be fixed. So, read more about the problem of ocean pollution below
Pollution started from the time plastic was invented. On the one hand, it is an irreplaceable thing that has made people's lives incredibly easier. Made it easier until the plastic product is thrown away: plastic takes more than a hundred years to decompose, and thanks to ocean currents gets lost in huge islands. One such island is more than American state Texas floats between California, Hawaii and Alaska - millions of tons of garbage. The island is growing rapidly, with ~2.5 million pieces of plastic and other debris being dumped into the ocean every day from all continents. Slowly decomposing, plastic causes serious harm to the environment. Birds, fish (and other ocean creatures) suffer the most. Plastic debris in the Pacific Ocean is responsible for the deaths of more than a million seabirds a year, as well as more than 100 thousand individuals. marine mammals. Syringes, lighters and toothbrushes are found in the stomachs of dead seabirds - birds swallow all these objects, mistaking them for food
"Garbage Island"has been growing rapidly since about the 1950s due to the peculiarities of the North Pacific current system, the center of which, where all the garbage ends up, is relatively stationary. According to scientists, currently the mass of the garbage island is more than three and a half million tons, and the area - more than a million square kilometers. The “Island” has a number of unofficial names: “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, “Eastern Garbage Patch”, “Pacific Trash Vortex”, etc. In Russian, it is sometimes also called a “garbage iceberg.” In 2001, the mass of plastic exceeded the mass of zooplankton in the island area by six times.
This huge pile of floating garbage - in fact the largest landfill on the planet - is held in one place by the influence of underwater currents that have turbulence. The swath of "soup" stretches from a point about 500 nautical miles off the coast of California through the North Pacific Ocean past Hawaii and just short of distant Japan.
American oceanographer Charles Moore, the discoverer of this “great Pacific garbage patch,” also known as the “garbage gyre,” believes that about 100 million tons of floating trash are circling in this region. Marcus Eriksen, director of science at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (USA), founded by Moore, said yesterday: "People initially thought it was an island from plastic waste, on which you can almost walk. This view is inaccurate. The consistency of the stain is very similar to plastic soup. It is simply endless - perhaps twice the area of the continental United States." The story of Moore's discovery of the garbage patch is quite interesting: 14 years ago, a young playboy and yachtsman Charles Moore, the son of a wealthy chemical magnate, decided after a session at the University of California to relax on Hawaiian Islands. At the same time, Charles decided to test his new yacht in the ocean. To save time, I swam straight ahead. A few days later, Charles realized that he had sailed into the trash heap.
“For a week, every time I went on deck, plastic junk floated past,” Moore wrote in his book Plastics are Forever? “I couldn’t believe my eyes: how could we pollute such a huge area of water?” I had to swim through this garbage dump day after day, and there was no end in sight...”
Swimming through tons household waste turned Moore's life upside down. He sold all his shares and founded environmental organization Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), which became involved in the research ecological state Pacific Ocean. His reports and warnings were often brushed aside and not taken seriously. Probably, a similar fate would have awaited the current AMRF report, but here nature itself helped ecologists - January storms threw more than 70 tons of plastic garbage onto the beaches of the islands of Kauai and Niihau. They say the son of the famous French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, who went to Hawaii to film New film, almost got it heart attack at the sight of these mountains of garbage. However, plastic has not only ruined the lives of vacationers, but also led to the death of some birds and sea turtles. Since then, Moore's name has not left the pages of American media. On last week AMRF's founder warned that unless consumers limit their use of non-recyclable plastics, the surface area of the "garbage soup" will double in the next 10 years, threatening not only Hawaii but the entire Pacific Rim.
But in general, they try to “ignore” the problem. The landfill does not look like an ordinary island; its consistency resembles a “soup” - fragments of plastic float in the water at a depth of one to hundreds of meters. In addition, more than 70 percent of all plastic that gets here ends up in the bottom layers, so we don’t even know exactly how much trash can accumulate there. Since plastic is transparent and lies directly below the surface of the water, the “polyethylene sea” cannot be seen from a satellite. Debris can only be seen from the bow of a ship or when scuba diving. But sea vessels They rarely visit this area, because since the days of the sailing fleet, all ship captains have laid routes away from this section of the Pacific Ocean, famous for that there is never wind here. In addition, the North Pacific Gyre is neutral waters, and all the garbage that floats here is no one's.
Oceanologist Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a leading authority on floating debris, has been monitoring the accumulation of plastic in the oceans for more than 15 years. He compares the garbage dump cycle to a living creature: “It moves around the planet like a large animal let off a leash.” When this animal approaches land - and in the case of the Hawaiian archipelago this is the case - the results are quite dramatic. “As soon as a garbage patch burps, the whole beach is covered in this plastic confetti,” says Ebbesmeyer.
According to Eriksen, the slowly circulating mass of water, replete with debris, poses a risk to human health. Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets - the raw material of the plastics industry - are lost every year and eventually end up in the sea. They pollute environment, acting as a kind of chemical sponge that attracts man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. This dirt then enters the stomachs along with food. "What ends up in the ocean ends up in the stomachs of the ocean's inhabitants, and then on your plate. It's very simple."
The main ocean polluters are China and India. Here it is considered common practice to throw garbage directly into a nearby body of water. Below is a photo that makes no sense to comment..
There is a powerful North Pacific subtropical eddy here, formed at the meeting point of the Kuroshio Current, northern trade wind currents and inter-trade wind countercurrents. The North Pacific Whirlpool is a kind of desert in the World Ocean, where a wide variety of rubbish has been carried for centuries from all over the world - algae, animal corpses, wood, ship wrecks. This is a real dead sea. Due to the abundance of rotting mass, the water in this area is saturated with hydrogen sulfide, so the North Pacific Eddy is extremely poor in life - there are no large commercial fish, neither mammals nor birds. No one except colonies of zooplankton. Therefore, fishing vessels do not come here, even military and merchant ships try to avoid this place, where high waters almost always reign. Atmosphere pressure and stinking calm
Since the early 50s of the last century, rotting algae has been added to plastic bags, bottles and packaging, which, unlike algae and other organics, are poorly subject to biological decay processes and do not disappear anywhere. Today, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 90 percent plastic. total weight which is six times the mass of natural plankton. Today, the area of all garbage patches even exceeds the territory of the United States! Every 10 years, the area of this colossal landfill increases by an order of magnitude
A similar island can be found in the Sargasso Sea - this is part of the famous Bermuda Triangle. Previously, there were legends about an island made from the wreckage of ships and masts, which drifts in those waters, but now the wooden wreckage has been replaced by plastic bottles and packages, and currently we are encountering real garbage islands. According to Green Peace, more than 100 million tons of plastic products are produced worldwide each year, and 10% of them end up in the world's oceans. Garbage islands are growing faster and faster every year. And only you and I can stop their growth by giving up plastic and switching to reusable bags and bags made of biodegradable materials. By at least, try to at least buy juice and water in glass containers or in tetra bags. A bright future for the world's oceans:
But on the planet there is also garbage cities!
Manshit Nasser is a garbage community in Egypt where garbage from all major cities. People actually live here and dig tunnels for themselves in search of something they can resell. They actually resell about 80% of all garbage in the end.
It's not difficult to get here. It is just half an hour's walk from the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most visited tourist sites.
Already from the walls of the Citadel, you will see on the vast panorama of the ten million metropolis a block with houses of an unusual red-violet color.
According to statistics, Cairo generates 6.5 thousand tons of garbage per day, of which 3-3.5 thousand tons are collected by zaballeens, as representatives of the special social group numbering about 40 thousand people living in the Medina Zebela area. For many years now they have been engaged the only thing passed down from generation to generation - collection, sorting and recycling of waste.
The area appeared in 1969, when the Cairo city administration decided to concentrate all waste collectors in one place.
Garbage is brought here by dump trucks, then bags of garbage are transported in smaller cars to yards and houses, where families - from children to the elderly - are all sorting it.
Piles of garbage hanging from balconies and roofs, bags of waste, blocking the already narrow streets - this is the first thing that woulddews into your eyes when you enter the territory of this gloomy quarter.
All the first floors of buildings are littered with garbage. You can get to the second (residential) floor only through a narrow passage. The smell is appropriate, insects and clouds of flies too.
Metal, paper and cardboard, rags and plastic - everything is put into separate bags. Some are then simply burned, which leaves a heavy smell of burnt plastic hanging over the block; some are taken away to processing plants. Organic waste is used to feed animals.
Meanwhile on the streets are coming usual life. Children play and make noise, men sit decorously and smoke a hookah, fruits and baked cakes are sold here, and on the ground floors of the houses there are ordinary grocery stores and eateries.
In addition to people, the streets are full of animals - these are goats and chickens, dogs, cats, as well as pigs, which also make their contribution to the destruction of waste.
And no one pays any attention to the huge bales that are already blocking the passage in places, hanging from all balconies, lying on the roofs of houses and in courtyards.
If you add to this the myriads of buzzing flies, dead rats and cats underfoot and, most importantly, the smell that accompanies all this, you get a very real picture of the apocalypse.
The main population of the quarter are Copts, supporters of one of the branches christian church. Copts became scavengers back in the days of Caliph Al-Hakim. He was a ruler from the Fatimid dynasty who conquered Egypt. He put an end to peaceful life all Christians and Muslims living in the country. The Copts, in particular, lost everything. They were supposed to do the dirtiest and hardest work. So garbage became their life.
Floating in the openings between houses, chapels are made of plywood and cardboard. They are covered with pictures depicting the Creator, decorated with crosses and light bulbs.
The meaning of such constructions is quite understandable - the holy faces of Jesus should not touch dirt. And how to do this in a city that seems to consist only of her.
They say that a city is a single organism.
Houses with people living in them are his living cells. Electricity, plumbing, sewerage - something without which these cells could not exist. Gardens and parks are the lungs of the city, the center is its heart. Roads - the arteries of the city - supply and saturate its organs - neighborhoods - with the necessary materials.
The life of this living organism does not stop for a second and in the process of its life it is forced to get rid of toxins - garbage and waste.
If we continue this analogy, then Manshiyat Nasir or the City of Scavengers, as this quarter of Cairo is called - the liver of an old and sick organism, whose age has exceeded ten centuries.
It's not difficult to get here. It is just half an hour's walk from the Saladin Citadel, one of Cairo's most visited tourist sites.
Already from the walls of the Citadel, you will see on the vast panorama of the ten million metropolis a block with houses of an unusual red-violet color.
Another question is whether it is worth going here at all and whether you are ready for what you will see here.
According to statistics, Cairo generates 6.5 thousand tons of garbage per day, of which 3-3.5 thousand tons are collected by zaballeen, which is the name given to representatives of a special social group of about 40 thousand people living in the Medina Zebela area. For many years now, they have been engaged in the only thing that has been passed down from generation to generation - collecting, sorting and recycling waste.
The area appeared in 1969, when the Cairo city administration decided to concentrate all waste collectors in one place.
Garbage is brought here by dump trucks, then bags of garbage are transported in smaller cars to yards and houses, where families - from children to the elderly - are all sorting it.
Piles of garbage hanging from balconies and roofs, bags of waste, blocking the already narrow streets - this is the first thing that woulddews into your eyes when you enter the territory of this gloomy quarter.
All the first floors of buildings are littered with garbage. You can get to the second (residential) floor only through a narrow passage. The smell is appropriate, insects and clouds of flies too.
Metal, paper and cardboard, rags and plastic - everything is put into separate bags. Some are then simply burned, which leaves a heavy smell of burnt plastic hanging over the block; some are taken away to processing plants. Organic waste is used to feed animals.
Meanwhile, life goes on as usual on the streets. Children play and make noise, men sit decorously and smoke a hookah, fruits and baked cakes are sold here, and on the ground floors of the houses there are ordinary grocery stores and eateries.
In addition to people, the streets are full of animals - these are goats and chickens, dogs, cats, as well as pigs, which also make their contribution to the destruction of waste.
And no one pays any attention to the huge bales that are already blocking the passage in places, hanging from all balconies, lying on the roofs of houses and in courtyards.
If you add to this the myriads of buzzing flies, dead rats and cats underfoot and, most importantly, the smell that accompanies all this, you get a very real picture of the apocalypse.
Children among the mountains of garbage find a field for their fun...
The main population of the quarter are Copts, supporters of one of the branches of the Christian church. Copts became scavengers back in the days of Caliph Al-Hakim. He was a ruler from the Fatimid dynasty who conquered Egypt. He put an end to the relatively peaceful life of all Christians and Muslims living in the country. The Copts, in particular, lost everything. They were supposed to do the dirtiest and hardest work. So garbage became their life.
Floating in the openings between houses, chapels are made of plywood and cardboard. They are covered with pictures depicting the Creator, decorated with crosses and light bulbs.
The meaning of such constructions is quite understandable - the holy faces of Jesus should not touch dirt. And how to do this in a city that seems to consist only of her.
That's life? Or does it just seem like life?
One of the strangest and most controversial areas to visit in Cairo is Medina Zebela or the City of Scavengers.
This neighborhood, at the foot of Mount Muqattam, consists of the traditional housing developments of Cairo's poor neighborhoods - three to nine-story brick houses with an unfinished upper floor. The same satellite dishes, the same street hookah barsBut there’s just a lot of garbage.
Bags of garbage are stacked in multi-meter pyramids along the streets, all the roofs of houses are littered with bags of garbage, alleys and staircases are blocked. Children play in it, adults dig in it.
Garbage is the basis of the life of the area. Sorting the city's garbage is a job for the zabaleen (scavengers) who inhabit this area.
Visitors, and even those with cameras, are not welcome here. But, holding our nose, we’ll still try to enter
In fact, this is the property of the Scavenger Guild. Here live those who bring garbage here in wheelbarrows and cars from all over the city of 15 million. Its sorting and processing is their bread.
The City of Scavengers is located at the foot of Mount Mukattam. It's a 10-minute walk from the citadel. Or through Northern Cemetery(notorious City of dead) from the Al-Azhar Mosque (about half an hour walk).
The city of Scavengers is located close to the monastery of St. Simeon. Therefore, tourist buses sometimes pass here, taking pilgrims to the monastery.
Probably due to this proximity, the residents of the quarter are Christians. Although most likely the investigative chain is as follows. Here, near the monastery, a cop quarter arose, and since the Copts were still oppressed in Muslim Cairo, they took up the most “menial” work - sorting out garbage.
The scavengers are busy manually sorting the garbage they bring. It is clearly seen that if Cairo had implemented European system separate containers for plastic, metal, etc., their work would become easier. Or it would lose its meaning.
Selected plastic, paper, iron, and zabaleen are handed over to the appropriate processing plants.
I also read on the Internet that the Zabaleen supposedly contain 40 thousand pigs that eat food scraps from garbage. And zabaleen manure obtained from pigs is sold as fertilizer. We did not see any hint of pigs in the area we visited.
Brought garbage is stored on the roofs
It is lifted there using special cranes.
About the smell. They say you can't visit the area in the summer. People are literally sick of the word. In winter the smell is not particularly noticeable. On the main street. If you go into the gateways and houses where recycling takes place, it’s already hard there.
Sorting is mainly done by women and children.
Men work transporting garbage
Sometimes there is so much garbage that you don’t even notice people right away.
Taking photographs in the area is more difficult than in the rest of Cairo. Many people, especially those sorting waste, express open dissatisfaction. So most of the photos are without particularly careful aiming.
What is most striking is that this is an ordinary city block. Children go to school uniform, selling fruits, people sitting in hookah bars.
And of course, the children sitting and playing in heaps of garbage are amazing.
The border of the district is beyond the railway. and the highway (Nasser Street) begins the city of the dead
So, you are welcome to the City of Scavengers. After visiting it, you will begin to idolize your work.
Whoever you work for
When the average Russian throws a bag of garbage into the trash can, he usually doesn’t think about future fate. At the same time, both in the outback and in major cities You can meet people who strive to examine the contents of containers before the arrival of garbage trucks and take something from them at their discretion. And it’s hard to imagine that there is a city in the world where all the residents are garbage collectors. Every single one...
Zabbaleen - City of Scavengers
In fact, a city with this name cannot be found on the Map. Zabbaleen is a suburb of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. For a good two centuries, from generation to generation, residents of this self-proclaimed community have earned their living exclusively by removing, sorting and subsequently processing garbage. One ton of garbage removed from Cairo provides 12 jobs for people of both sexes and all ages. Everything has its own stages: removal, sorting, cleaning and painstaking processing on special machines.
What does garbage turn into?
One of the Zabbaleen's most profitable crafts is plastic recycling. Only glass and metal can compete with it. After cleaning, plastic bottles and other types of packaging are cleaned, and then using special machines (for which Zabbaleen people have been saving money for years) the plastic is ground into plastic flour. This flour is sent back to Cairo, where it is used to make plastic spoons, forks and other disposable items. Zabbaleen women are usually responsible for sorting food waste. And most profitable business, of course, the selection of glass containers is considered.
Market for goods from landfill
Very often, Zabbaleen find tubes of decorative cosmetics and body care products in the trash that are barely opened or never opened at all. Locals call such finds “brands.” After washing, these goods are sent to the local market, where women try to sell them to their fellow tribesmen, chanting: “Buy! Don’t steal, otherwise the Lord will punish you!”
The most ancient Christians in the world
All residents of Zabbaleen consider themselves to be members of the Coptic religious community. Copts are the most ancient Christians in the world. They believe that their beliefs arose during the life of Jesus. Their main ideological doctrines are: to live in peace, not to sin, to decide everything among themselves and only in peace.
There is no crime in the community at all. It is interesting that the police and any other government services of Cairo are not allowed inside Zabbaleen. The Zabbaleen decide everything within the community. The Egyptian authorities take this completely calmly and do not introduce themselves into the life of the City of Scavengers.
There are essentially two powers in Zabbaleen. The first is the elder council. It includes the oldest residents of the city. If any resident experiences any controversial issue, he goes to the elders. They give instructions on what to do in the current situation, after which everyone shakes hands and goes home.
The second power is the self-proclaimed mayor of Zabbaleen named Shehato El Magadiz. On the border between Cairo and Zabbaleen is his large villa with amazing beauty clay dovecote and hired servants. Rumor has it that he became rich because both his former father and his present self had made arrangements with Cairo to transport entires from the landfill back to the capital. glass bottles. Shehato often appears on local television. In his appeals, he asks the Egyptian authorities to allocate more modern equipment for transporting garbage to ensure complete safety for garbage collectors.
Working day
Residents of Zabbaleen sometimes start working at the age of 7. The parents of each child themselves decide at what age the child will become a full-fledged garbage collector. On average, children begin working at the age of 10. “Richer” parents believe that it is a sin to force a child to work before the age of 14-15.
A scavenger's working day usually begins at half past four in the morning. Each Zabbalene has strictly regulated access to a garbage truck on a specific street in the Egyptian capital. No one ever violates these established rules.
The first stage is transportation of waste to the “workplace”. There, throughout early morning, waste is sorted. When the sun is already shining brightly, the process of cleaning and subsequent processing begins. Thus, Zabbaleen are usually freed from work in the early evening.
Evening relaxation in Zabbaleen
Drinking alcohol in Zabbaleen is acceptable, but not particularly encouraged due to the community's radical Christianity. In the cleaner areas of the City of Scavengers there are hookah bars, tea houses, coffee shops and snack bars. Locals After a grueling day of work, people come to these establishments to play dominoes, have dinner, drink tea and smoke hookah.
Garbage in the blood - benefit or harm?
Most adult Zabbaleen men complain about serious problems with the back. Sometimes they have to carry 40-50 kilograms at a time to the 5th floor of the building. However, the Zabbaleen do not consider themselves unhealthy. They believe that great amount bacteria that inevitably enter their body every day (as they inhale waste products) strengthen their immunity.
“The Mayor” even believes that he would never have been able to look so good after 55 years if bacteria had not strengthened the immunity of his grandfather and father. It is interesting that almost all Zabbalans have shining, snow-white, healthy teeth.
Pigeons for dinner
Half of the residents of Scavenger Town have dovecotes. They breed pigeons very actively to use them as... food. Favorite dish Zabbalans - fried pigeon meat with boiled rice. However, until the moment the dove becomes dinner, the Zabbaleen treat it like a pet - they caress it, call it by name, talk to it. Nothing can spoil the locals' appetite: they have not noticed the stench of the landfill since birth.It's probably worth thinking seriously about separate garbage collection. In post-Soviet countries, this issue is quite acute today. Each country has its own “Zabbaleen”. Current trend By separate collection garbage will make the work of many “invisible” workers easier.
To those who are not tempted beach holiday, it is worth making - through the desert from the Red Sea to the youngest attraction in the land of the pharaohs, undeservedly forgotten today.