Despite having been at the center of Egypt’s waste recycling beating for decades and receiving generous praise from the government in recent campaigns, casual garbage creditors attend COP27 and don’t know that the UN event is recently being installed on Egyptian soil.
Zabaleen, an Arabic transliteration of occasional garbage collectors, is infrequently used as a pejorative term. His paintings are looked down upon, even though they have long played a leading role in collecting tons of garbage from the streets of Cairo and other cities.
Anonymous garbage creditors were invited to COP27, which focuses on climate change, its risks and tactics for dealing with it. They simply continue to practice their race without paying attention to the event.
Zakher Al-Assuity, 23, is a garbage collector in Giza who shares ownership of a truck with others. His training involves picking up garbage in the community of Al-Talbyia near the pyramids, carrying it in a makeshift bag on his back and heading to the truck to do so.
Due to Greater Cairo’s topography and lack of urban planning, garbage trucks accumulate traffic congestion, but are common in the most populous Arab nation.
“I paint to feed myself, be a greater user and take care of my family. I don’t know much about the weather [climate],” he says.
While Al-Assuity’s hands are full of scars and skin irritations, he considers himself lucky compared to his peers, with garbage creditors receiving virtually nothing from the government. “Others have contracted viruses and other diseases. We don’t have a protector. social network if one of us is hurt.
Um Morqus, a 43-year-old widow and mother of three, wakes up every day at four in the morning and starts wandering around with her donkey-drawn cart, picking up cans of plastic, paper and steel.
He finishes his paintings at 11 p. m. before his children start delivering the waste to other warehouses, some of which belong to other collectors.
Some creditors have appliances for squeezing plastic cans or soft drinks, while others have farms where pigs eat biological waste.
Informal garbage creditors handle about 50% of the waste, personal sector corporations process about 30%, and the remaining 20% is collected directly through local governments in Cairo and Giza, basically in upper-class neighborhoods.
Thousands of creditors in Manshiyet Nasr Domain on Moqattam Mountain in Old Cairo serve the capital where more than 30 million people reside.
More than 65 percent of Cairo’s garbage is collected through the citizens of this working-class neighborhood, which is home to 65,000 people, according to official data.
The media dubbed this community Hay El-Zabaleen in Arabic, or the community of garbage collectors. There are bus stops nearby that have the same name.
Established by Egypt’s British colonialism in 1946, when the main source of waste was soldiers’ camps, the garbage collector network now recycles more than 80% of Cairo’s waste.
Um Morqus collects over a hundred kg of garbage every day, and her younger male peers earn more than twice that amount each. “Our paintings are a must for people,” said Beshara, a 56-year-old man. Garbage collector
“We make money, but we do a wonderful service to the country. Cairo is dirty, but the streets are even dirtier when we are on vacation,” he added, referring to January 7, Easter Easter, like most of Hay El. The citizens of Zabaleen are Coptic Christians.
Usually, families are completely concerned about the garbage trade. For example, Beshara’s 15-year-old daughter, Maria, focuses on sorting waste. It retails tubes of toothpaste, shampoo bottles, papers and notebooks, cans and milk cartons in separate bags.
Smaller-scale garbage communities exist in other parts of Egypt, such as the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and Upper Egypt.
The head of the garbage collectors’ union, Shehata El-Moqades, says most garbage collectors blame themselves for the lack of infrastructure to collect and recycle waste.
“Informal garbage creditors process about 50 percent of waste, personal sector corporations process about 30 percent, and the remaining 20 percent is collected directly through local governments in Cairo and Giza, basically in bourgeois neighborhoods,” he said, adding that the government collaborates more with the casual sector.
“The presence of garbage collection corporations in governorates is more than many projects aimed at preserving the environment,” El-Moqades adds.
The work of occasional garbage creditors is not interrupted during the current COP27.
“I only hear about the UN when they come. They [journalists or representatives] take our photos. I can see them making [disgusted] faces because of the smell,” Um Morqus told The Africa Report.
Beshara has never heard of COP27. ” I heard about Sharm el-Sheikh from my cousin who works in a hotel there. I know there are a lot of pretty Russian women there,” she says.
While Um Morqus and Beshara were invited to COP27, some representatives from recycling operations and richer startups attended the UN event.
But occasional garbage creditors are completely isolated. A representative of the Ministry of Environment told The Africa Report that two years ago they introduced a recycling initiative with major manufacturers of plastic bottled beverages, through which corporations cooperate with occasional garbage creditors.
For now, informal garbage collection remains amid insufficient infrastructure, the source said, adding that Egypt aims to build 56 waste recycling plants, 28 of which are already operational.
Remon’s circle of relatives has been economically solidified thanks to his activity in the garbage collection business; however, the 23-year-old, a resident of Hay El-Zabaleen, has chosen not to follow the same path, as he leans towards a more organized, but less effective organization. Efforts.
Remon has joined projects to eliminate plastic and Nile disorder. “It is their task as Hay El Zabaleen. This is an occasion they will attend for a day. But in the end, they will come from home and hand over their trash to the occasional collector, who does it for the money,” Remon told The Africa Report.
“These initiatives, which are owned by small startups and sponsored through foreign embassies, are smart and positive, but they cannot take care of the disposal of tons of waste. “