UNESP 2003

By Gretel C. Kovach

Each day Mussa Nazmy, 15, gets up at dawn and drives thefamily donkey cart down the hill into downtown Cairo. Then he goes house to house loading trash into a basket on his back, carts it home and spends hours picking out the plastic bottles and other recyclables. He brings them to a UNESCOfunded Recycling School, where they’re processed and resold to plastics manufacturers. “You can make lots of money in recycling,” says Nazmy.

Nazmy is one of 50,000 zabbaleen –Coptic Christian men, women and children –who make their living off Cairo’s trash. They recyclean astounding 80 percent of the garbage they collect –far higher than the 20 percent typical of most municipalities. Their prowess has attracted international acclaim and awards. But now, as part of a longtime effort to modernize, the municipality of Cairo may put the zabbaleen out of business. Last month Spanish and Italian wastemanagement companies began taking over Cairo’s trash routes. The contract reportedly costs $50 million a year, but calls for recycling only 20 percent of its trash.

(Newsweek, 10.03.2003.)

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