Most major capital cities encounter problems with disposing of rubbish. And Cairo with its population of 16 million is no exception.
Almost unnoticed among the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the noisy street sellers and crowds milling around are the teams of quiet donkey carts laden with all kinds of discarded items as well as the usual black rubbish bags.
But collecting is just the start of the work of zabaleen. Each day before it's light unofficial teams of Christian families who've been keeping Cairo free from rubbish for generations cart 60 thousand tons of rubbish back to their settlements. The largest is on Moqattam Hill in the Mansheit Nassr district.
Sylvia Smith went to see how the mounds of Cairo's unwanted rubbish is sorted and recycled by the women of "garbage city". She was taken round by Suzy Greiss, Mary Assad and Shadia Iskander all members of a voluntary group working to improve the lives of the zabaleen women. |
