This issue looks at health and gender. Their identity may come as no surprise About 15 million people live in Cairo, one of the most densely populated and highly polluted cities in the world. The city is now surrounded by mountains of garbage. Collection, sorting, and recycling of rubbish has been taken on by groups of poor people known as Zabballeen since the 1970s. Their operations have become organised.
Garbage is collected from households.
Primary sorters distribute to lower grade collectors, who are responsible for sorting refuse into packs of glass, organic matter, and plastics. These are then sold in bulk to middlemen, who in turn sell to factories who use the recycled materials. The lowest grade in the Zabballeen hierarchy, and hence the lowest paid and most exploited, are women and children. Their project site is Mancheyyat Kasseb, an urban settlement of 16,000 on the slope of the Moqattam mountain. Entire households scavenge and live from garbage, usually supplementing income by raising animals such as pigs, rabbits and chickens.