Zabbaleen

The Zabbaleen (Egyptian Arabic: زبالين "garbage people" [http://www.domresearchcenter.com/journal/13/ghagar13.html Gypsies and non-Gypsies in Egypt: ] ] ) are an Egyptian community of mainly Coptic Christians who are employed in the city of Cairo to collect and dispose of much of the city's waste.

The Zabbaleen generally perform this service very cheaply or for free, making a living by sorting the waste materials for reuse or recycling. Waste food is fed to livestock (most often pigs) or poultry. Other materials, such as steel, glass and plastic bottles, are sorted by hand and sold as raw materials. Other items are repaired or reused. Some material is burnt as fuel. Traditionally, donkey driven carts are used by males to collect waste from homes, which is sorted by female members of the family in zabbaleen homes. It is claimed that zabbaleen reuse or recycle 80-90% of the waste they collect (a figure that the most modern waste management systems in the world aspire to), however this must be put into context of the fact that the zabbaleen do not collect all the waste, and concentrate on wealthier areas.

Until the 1980s, there was no formal system of waste collection in Cairo. All collection was performed by zabbaleen. This informal garbage collection system is still a fundamental part of the city's solid waste management. The zabbaleen collect between a third and a half of the 6,500 tonnes of Municipal solid waste that Cairo produces every day, with half being collected by the city and private companies and the remaining 1,500 tonnes left uncollected, generally in the poorest areas. Any uncollected garbage that is burnt will severely exacerbate the air pollution problem in Cairo.

The Zabbaleen live in an area known locally as Garbage City. The Zabbaleen in Cairo (an estimated 60,000 - 70,000 in number) are mostly descendants of poor farmers from Upper Egypt who settled in the city in the 1950s. [Cairo's devoted refuse collectors, BBC News]

Many Zabbaleen suffer from health problems such as hepatitis, due to the low-tech sorting methods used and general poverty.

Municipal authorities in Egypt have tried for several years to replace the Zabbaleen with modern waste collection and disposal methods, primarily employing large foreign companies [Dumping the Zabaleen, Al-Ahram Weekly Online] . This process has attracted controversy in the area, with many residents objecting to higher fees for the modern disposal service. The modern collection service has also been criticized for being unable to recycle as much of the waste material as the Zabbaleen.

History

At the end of 19th Century, a group of migrants known as the wahiya moved to Cairo and assumed responsibility for collection and disposal of the city's household waste; working under contract with building owners. The organic part of this was dried in the open, and sold as fuel for cooking and water heating. In the 1930s, oil began replacing this fuel. A group of pig breeders, zarraba, migrated to Cairo at this time and formed a relationship. The wahiya retained access rights to the waste, acting as middlemen, while the zarraba worked as collectors; feeding their pigs with the organic portion of the waste. The two groups are generally known as Zabbaleen.

Modernisation and Controversy

By 1980, the population of Cairo was rapidly expanding. “As the city grew and the amount of daily garbage skyrocketed, Cairo's trash collection needs began to overtake the Zabbaleen's capacity to provide services” (Assad, 1998, p2). Something certainly needed to be done about this problem.

In the 80s and 90s, the Governorate of Cairo sought for the zabbaleen to 'modernise' their collection equipment; in other words to move from donkey carts to collection trucks. At least part of the motivation for the Governorate to modernise their MSWM has been aesthetic. In 1987, a decree was issued banning the use of donkey drawn carts for garbage collection in Cairo. This was later redefined, to allow their use in some areas of the city, although not in any of the wealthier areas; which produce the most lucrative waste, and no doubt are more frequented by tourists.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the governorate sought the involvement of three European waste management companies, FCC and Urbaser (both Spanish) and the Italian AMA. They have been widely criticized for doing this, by both media commentators and grassroots development workers, who have argued that they should instead have provided the zabbaleen with the resources to expand their services to the whole city. This issue is still contentious, for example the BBC, recently reported that the zabbaleen are “more environmentally friendly than the mechanised garbage crushing trucks from Europe that the municipality brought in about 10 years ago. Once rubbish has been mechanically compressed, no recycling is possible. It can only be dumped.” (Smith, 2005)

However, Satterthwaite (1999), while confirming that processed waste is difficult to recycle, cites Cairo as an example of an authority that is “seeking to introduce social and environmental goals into their solid waste collection and management.”

It is certainly true that the zabbaleen have been disregarded since migrating to Cairo. As Aziz (2004, p13) comments: “The Zabbaleen have a negative image with both the government and with part of the general public, often supported by the media. This has partly to do with their (mainly) Christian background and the fact that many raise pigs. The official policy towards the Zabbaleen fluctuates between ignoring them and harassing them. “The national and local government do not treat the Zabbaleen as stakeholders at all. Their voice is hardly heard in the media. The whole debate about private sector participation did not include them, except during a few events organised by development organisations.”

Reporters have complained that the contracting of large European firms could lead to mass unemployment, and potentially exploitation of the zabbaleen. However, one report indicates that this view is possibly naïve. It was claimed that the companies had been paid less than a quarter of the money they were originally owed in 2003-4 by the Governorate of Cairo, due to a penalties system for incomplete work. The Managing Director of IES claimed that the company had “not been allowed to review the penalties in detail”, and that they “already pay the zabbaleen L.E. 435,000 per month for this service. Yet the GCBA has penalised the company L.E. 1,500,000 per month for shortcomings in their work”. If this is true, then it seems just as likely to be Egyptians, from both sides, who have been exploiting the foreign waste management companies. This has reportedly led to failure in the system, with litter-strewn streets and the continued use of the unsanitary landfill sites (Rashed, 2004). It could well be that this is why one of “the main outcomes of the large-scale privatisation seems to have been that a new generation of street waste pickers has been created.” (Aziz, 2004, p12)

References

[http://www.socsci.umn.edu/%7Ebongman/urbansustainability/assad.htm] Assad, R., (1998), Upgrading the Moqattam Zabbaleen (Garbage Collectors) Settlement in Cairo: What Have We Learned?, Paper Presented at the Macarthur Consortium on International Peace and Cooperation Symposium on The Challenge of Urban Sustainability.

[http://www.waste.nl/content/download/788/5692/file/Field%20study%20report%20Egypt%20ebook.pdf] Aziz, H., (2004), 'Improving the livelihood of child waste pickers: experiences with the ‘Zabbaleen’ in Cairo, Egypt', WASTE

Iskander, L. (2000) Urban Governance.Informal Sector & Municipal Solid Waste in Cairo

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4602185.stm] Smith, S., (2005) Cairo's devoted refuse collectors, BBC News

[http://www.amcham.org.eg/Publications/BusinessMonthly/April%2003/reports%28garbagecollectionfarmedouttochagrinofzabbaleen%29.asp] Negus, S., Garbage collection farmed out, to chagrin of zabbaleen, American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Business Monthly April 2003, (accessed 16/10/05)

[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/594/eg7.htm] Rashed, D., (2002) Dumping the Zabaleen, Al-Ahram Weekly Online

[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/661/eg6.htm] Rashed, D., (2003) Cairo Cleanup Conundrums, Al-Ahram Weekly Online

[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/624/fe1.htm] Rashed, D., (2003) Trashed Lives, Al-Ahram Weekly Online

[http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/694/sc3.htm] Rashed, D., (2004), Unfinished Business, Al-Ahram Weekly Online

Satterthwaite, D., (1999), The Earthscan reader in Sustainable Cities, Earthscan Publications Limited, London

Miller, F.D., Sherif, M. El_Hakim, Bruce, John I. 1982. An Epidemiological Investigation of Health Risks Related to Solid Waste Salvage and Recycling in an Egyptian Community. Tropical and Geographical Medicine 34:241-249.

http://www.domresearchcenter.com/journal/13/ghagar13.html

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/03/MNGKOJ82991.DTL