Zabbaleen

First wave of migration Around the 1910s, a group of Muslim migrants from the Dakhla oasis in the Western desert of Egypt relocated to Cairo in an area known as Bab El Bahr, which is situated between Attaba and Ramses square in downtown Cairo. These people are known as the Wahiya (singular: wahi), which means people of the oasis. Second wave of migration In the 1930s and 40s, there was a second wave of migration. This new group, mostly landless peasants, is known as the Zabbaleen. The descendants of subsistence farmers, the Zabbaleen originate from the El Badari district in Asyut, a rural region in Upper Egypt, which is the southern part of Egypt. Although the governor of Cairo granted the Zabbaleen administrative permission to settle in the area, he did not issue a lease or legal tenure. Thus, because of their precarious situation, the Zabbaleen initially lived in makeshift settlements of tin huts, made mostly of barrels that the Zabbaleen found amongst the waste that they collected. Hence, the relationship between the Wahiya and the Zabbaleen was hierarchically constituted. The Wahiya acted as the middlemen between the Zabbaleen and Cairo's households. Because Cairenes are generally not aware of the distinction between the Wahiya and the Zabbaleen (also called zarraba), they tend to refer to both groups as Zabbaleen. It should be noted, however, that these two groups are distinct, serving different functions in the informal economy of collecting Cairo's municipal solid waste (MSW). In response to government pressures to upgrade and modernize the refuse collection system, the Wahiya and the Zabbaleen made an agreement which resulted in the establishment of the Environmental Protection Company, a private-for-profit company, in 1989. The formation of the EPC officially established the Wahiya and the Zabbaleen as key participants in the collection of MSW, formalizing a relationship that had already existed for decades. This was precisely in the neighborhoods that were being more fully served given Cairo's narrow, winding streets that are not wide enough for large garbage trucks. Regardless, in the early 1990s, the garbage collectors had to comply with the municipality's requirements to use motorized trucks, rather than donkey carts, as the authorities introduced a system of mechanization to transport solid waste. In the absence of government support, the Zabbaleen had to find ways to purchase the newly required motorized trucks themselves, and many resorted to credit loans, emptying their personal savings, or even selling small plots of land in their ancestral villages. Within the EPC, the Wahiya conducted administration, marketed the company's services, collected the fees from tenants, and supervised service deliveries. On the other end, the Zabbaleen, "many of whom might otherwise have been homeless and without employment, collected and transported the waste." In more recent years, as the Zabbaleen became more involved in the work, some received a minimal fee from the Wahiya. ==Notable people ==

• Yousriya Loza Sawiris: a Coptic businesswoman and wife of Onsi Sawiris, the patriarch of the Sawiris family, despite not being a part of the zabaleen community. She is considered by many the queen of the zabaleen neighbourhood and turned recycling in Cairo into a proper business, both expanding the operations and giving many zabbaleen job opportunities. She is married to Onsi Sawiris and mother of Naguib Sawiris and Samih Sawiris. ==Zabbaleen settlements==

Main settlements There are seven main settlements, in which the Zabbaleen reside in the Greater Cairo Urban Region: Ein El Sira, Moatamdia, El Bargil, Tora, Ezbet el Nakhl, Helwan, and Mokattam. Although Mokattam village is relatively close to the center of Cairo, it is not easily accessible from Cairo because it is situated on a plateau, and is surrounded by the cliffs of the Mokattam hills on one side and by the Manshiet Nasser squatter settlement on the other side. In 2008, another rockslide from the Mokattam hills killed more than 100 people in El-Duweiqa, another shantytown in the Mokattam district. These rock slides brought public attention to the precarious location of shantytowns located below the Mokattam mountains, as well as to the Zabbaleen. Some attribute these frequent rock slides to various development and construction activities on Mokattam Mountain's upper plateau, on which the upper middle class residential district of Mokattam City is located. Living conditions The living conditions in Mokattam Village, and the other Zabbaleen settlements, are poor. In the 1970s, "the streets were so stacked with heaps of assorted refuse that some of them could not be located. The air was heavily polluted by the smoke generated from fires that were either lit deliberately to dispose of unwanted waste, or resulted from the spontaneous combustion of organic residues." According to Assad, "reported infant mortality rates, particularly from tetanus, were extremely high. In 1981, infant mortality was estimated at about 240 deaths per thousand births (EQI Report #3, 1981: 36)." The infant mortality rate dropped to 117 per thousand in 1991, but the infant mortality rate in the Mokattam community is still substantially higher than the average infant mortality rate of Cairo for the 1990-95 period, which was 45.6 per thousand. ==Religion==

, Muquattam, Cairo 's Hall Egypt is a Muslim-majority country. However, over 90 percent of the Zabbaleen community in the Mokattam village are Coptic Christians. Cave church The local Coptic church in Mokattam Village was established in 1975. After the establishment of the church, the Zabbaleen felt more secure in their location and only then began to use more permanent building materials, such as stone and bricks, for their homes. Given their previous experience of eviction from Giza in 1970, the Zabbaleen had lived in temporary tin huts up till that point. More churches have been built into the caves found in Mokattam. Currently, there are seven cave churches hidden among the caves of Mokattam Mountain. The Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner is the largest and it has an amphitheater with a seating capacity of 20,000. This church is the largest church in the Middle East and the largest religious building in Egypt. It is named after the Coptic saint, Simon the Tanner, who lived at the end of the 10th century, when Egypt was ruled by the Muslim Fatimid Caliph Al-Muizz Lideenillah. Simon the Tanner is the Coptic saint who is associated with the legend of the moving of the Mokattam Mountain. Adjacent churches to the Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner include St. Paul's Church, St. Mark's Church, and St. Simon the Tanner's Hall. The cave churches of Mokattam are also a point of interest for many tourists visiting Cairo. ==Zabbaleen recycling methods==

Many sources state that the Zabbaleen have created one of the most efficient recycling systems in the world, which recycles up to 80 percent of all the waste that they collect. What is distinctive about the Zabbaleen from many other urban informal waste collecting-groups that scavenge trash for useful products is that the Zabbaleen invest heavily in their tools and know-how for recycling. These Zabbaleen micro-entrepreneurs have invested "an estimated 2.1 million Egyptian pounds (LE) (US $ 1⁄4 LE 6.19 -May 2004 rates) in trucks, plastic granulators, paper compactors, cloth grinders, aluminium smelters, and tin processors." By investing in such infrastructure, the Zabbaleen continually upgraded and enhanced their methods of recycling plastic, paper, cardboard, glass, metal, and fabrics. Thus, the city of Cairo and its administration had been able to manage its solid waste at almost no cost to the municipal administration because of such efforts by the Zabbaleen. This trash is completely unsorted because there is not a system of recycling at the source in Egypt. It is rare for girls to go to collect the trash and it stops almost entirely after girls reach the age 10. Creation of goods using recycled materials After the sorting of materials is finished, the Zabbaleen sell the sorted materials, such as paper, tin, rags, plastic materials, cloth, etc. The Zabbaleen sell these sorted materials to factories that then reuse these products, such as paper, in the creation of new material. According to Engi Wassef, the director of the documentary film, Marina of the Zabbaleen, PT plastic, which is the plastic used to make plastic bottles for water and other beverages, is one of the most highly sought out materials. The rest of the trash that foreign companies do not recycle are placed into new landfills. The Mega-Cities Project sought to encourage the Zabbaleen system of waste collection and recycling as a model to be encouraged in other developing world cities such as Manila and Mumbai. The Zabbaleen waste collection system has received international funding from the World Bank, the Ford Foundation and Oxfam for specific projects to upgrade and improve the recycling of solid waste. ==Contracting out municipal waste collection==

Selling of contracts to foreign companies In 2003, the government of Egypt sold annual contracts reaching US$50 million to international companies to collect Cairo's solid waste. The three companies that were awarded with contracts for cleaning Cairo are Spanish companies Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas and Urbaser, Enser, and AMA, an Italian company. The Egyptian Company for Garbage Collection, a domestic company, was also awarded with contracts. There was a precedent for this approach to trash collection two years earlier, in 2001, when the government agreed to sign a contract with Onyx, a French company, to manage the waste of Alexandria, the second largest city in Egypt. Through this contract, the Egyptian government agreed to pay $446 million to Onyx for the treatment of one million tons of waste per year for 15 years, a sum that was ten times greater than what the government had previously paid before for its municipal waste management. Impact on Cairo Significantly, the foreign companies, despite the large value of their contracts, are only required to recycle 20 percent of the waste that they collect; the remaining 80 percent are placed into landfills. In contrast, the Zabbaleen recycle up to 80 percent of all the MSW that they collect. The foreign companies collected the trash from garbage bins placed at central collection points on the streets. However, many inhabitants of Cairo preferred the door-to-door garbage pick-up done by the Zabbaleen, especially because the bins were not plentifully located or located in inconvenient places. Impact on Zabbaleen The subcontracting of MSW collection to foreign companies had an immediate negative impact upon the Zabbaleen community as documented in Mai Iskander's film, Garbage Dreams. Contracting out MSW to foreign companies meant that the Zabbaleen would lose access to garbage, which was the basis of their recycling and sorting activities. In the documentary Garbage Dreams, Laila, a social worker in Mokattam Village, says, "The city contracted with foreign waste disposal companies because they perceived the Zabbaleen to be old-fashioned. But they didn't come tell us, "You need to modernize your ways." This was all done behind our backs. "we're replacing you with the companies." So we can be like the developed countries." This system failed, however, because the companies underpaid the Zabbaleen. According to Fahmi and Sutton, "while company sources mention salaries ranging between LE 300 to LE 450 per month (US $50–$75), some Zabbaleen claim that the salaries on offer are actually closer to LE 150 per month." One Zabbal with eight children gave a similar figure: whereas he used to make LE 10 a day (US$1.60), foreign contractors offered him LE 5 a day. ==Pig cull==

Government order In April 2009, the first cases of the H1N1 influenza were found in Mexico. By the end of that month, it was estimated that up to 169 people died due to the epidemic. All of the deaths, except for one, occurred in Mexico. Egypt responded to this outbreak of H1N1 by ordering the culling of its swine population, an act which had a devastating impact on the livelihood of 70,000 Zabbaleen families. This decision was made not by the Health Ministry, but directly by the Parliament. International organizations, including the United Nations criticized the Egyptian government for its decision. Egypt was the only country in the world to take such a drastic decision as to cull an estimated 300,000 pigs. H1N1 influenza was officially declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization in June 2009. The pandemic was then declared to be officially over by the World Health Organization on August 10, 2010. Explanations for the cull When first ordering the pig cull, the Egyptian government asserted that it was a precaution to forestall national fears of the imminent pandemic. Effect on the Zabbaleen The pig cull negatively affected the Zabbaleen in several ways. First, because the pigs eat the organic waste, they are a vital component in their recycling system, the pig cull literally destroyed the Zabbaleen recycling system. Deprived of their pig herds, the Zabbaleen stopped collecting such organic trash, leaving food piles to rot in the streets, leading to the increase of trash in the streets. Effect on Cairo Many observers noticed an immediate increase in piles of trash on the streets of Cairo after the pig cull. Because in the Zabbaleen system of recycling, it is the pigs who initially eat the organic waste, the pig cull had a negative effect on the cleanliness of Cairo's streets. According to Khalil in an article by Al Masry Al Youm, "The elimination of the pigs prompted more trash than usual to immediately start clogging the streets of the capital." Slackman notes that after the pig cull, "rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba." This piling up of organic MSW became hazardous because the organic waste then became a source of infectious diseases and led to an increase of rat infestation. == See also ==