Zabaleen,the garbage collectors of Egypt...

Nestling haphazardly at the foot of Cairo’s Moqattam mountain, eclipsed by the impressive Monastery of Saint Samaán with its daily influx of worshippers, pilgrims and wealthy tourists, this remarkable community quietly and diligently goes about its business of gathering and recycling the immense tonnage of solid waste produced by the Arab world’s most populous state.

Socially ostracized, discriminated against and facing cool disregard from the authorities, this community of an estimated 60 – 70,000 Coptic Christians migrated from remote regions of Egypt in the 1950’s, settling on low-value land on Cairo’s eastern edge. Now known as the Zabaleen, an Arabic phrase which means quite literally “garbage people”, the community has evolved into a hardworking and self-sustaining people offering an informal yet highly-organised service to homes and businesses throughout the city. For generations, garbage has represented an asset to them as they have pursued the invaluable harvesting and hand-sorting of the 15,000 tonnes of rotting domestic refuse produced every day by the city’s 17.8 million residents. More...

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