Solid Waste Pollution in

Cairo
Jude AlSayed & Hana Kouta

Photography Foundations I - JRMC 2230

Secondary Research
The city produces more than 15,000 tons of solid waste every day which is putting tremendous
strain on citys infrastructure.
Around 60 percent of the solid waste is managed by formal as well as informal waste collection,
disposal or recycling operations while the rest is thrown on city streets or at illegal dumpsites.
Waste management is causing serious ecological and public health problems in Cairo.
For example, disposal of solid waste in water bodies has lead to contamination of water supplies in
several parts of the city.
The Zabbaleen, traditional waste collectors of Cairo, have been responsible for creating one of the
worlds most efficient and sustainable resource-recovery and waste-recycling systems.
 What The Zabbaleen do:
1. Collect waste from streets and households using donkey carts and pickup trucks.
2. Sort waste and transform into useful products like quilts, rugs, paper, livestock food, compost,
recycled plastic products etc..
3. Lastly, after removing recyclable and organic materials, the segregated waste is passed onto
various enterprises owned by Zabbaleen families.
The Zabbaleen collect around 60 percent of the total solid waste generated in Cairo and recycle
up to 80 percent of the collected waste which is much higher than recycling efficiencies observed
in the Western
Primary Research
CISV
Sustainable Development themed program
International Peoples Project
Beneficial projects for the environment and community
4 different countries work together
Examples: combating environmental degradation, support for immigrants or an arts-based
regeneration scheme.
Interview with Laila El-Gamal, one of the participants in the program.
Recycling
Sell Your Garbage kiosks
Place we will be shooting at
Between the Citadel and Maadi. Along Autostrad road.
Photographs we captured
Judes Reflection
Our project aims to raise awareness on the topic of solid waste pollution in Egypt and how it has been negatively affecting us in
many ways for a very long time now. Regardless of the many attempts of recycling solid waste and turning it into useful
products, still a large amount of waste could not be recycled and ends up everywhere on our streets. In our project, we wanted
to visit a place in Cairo Between the Citadel and Maadi; along Autostrad road and take photographs of the garbage that has
been accumulated there to spread awareness on the topic and allow people to rethink the current situation one more time and
how it is only getting worse over time. There might be some people who still couldnt image or believe that certain areas in our
city could be turned into large garbage bins and this might be a chance for them to notice and take an action even if on a small
individual level. People could by then start rethinking their use of plastic, glass and other things that cannot possibly be
recycled and ends up harming our city. We have high hopes that the photographs would have an impact on people and would
make them want to avoid turning their city in a big mess fully loaded with garbage everywhere.
Hanas Reflection
During these past couple of days, we had been working on two completely different assignments that sort of had similar
meanings in the sense of the location we were at. The first assignment started off with basic research of creating a powerpoint
about something that affects our environment. The most obvious and critical one was waste pollution. It didnt take us time to
see what locations we had to go to and take pictures at because theres waste all over Cairo. However, that wouldnt have had
meaning so, we went to a district between the Citadel and Maadi which was full of life and garbage. As we walked, there was a
market full of furniture, equipment, food etc.. and there were also apartments and dog sales and garbage everywhere.
Everytime we got excited to see that there was so much life in such a small place, we found piles of garbage next to it which
was quite sad. These pictures are not enough to bring awareness but they are a start because as you can see in the pictures,
the amount of materials thrown in the piles are uncountable and this just shows that these places could recycle and make the
most of what they have. Raising awareness about this place is important because its a shame to see it go to waste.
References
Al Ahram Weekly. (2017). Egypts garbage problem. [online] Available at:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/14892.aspx [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017].
Ape.org.eg. (2017). A.P.E. | Cairo,Egypt. [online] Available at:
http://www.ape.org.eg/TheZabbaleenHistory.html# [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017].
Your Middle East. (2017). Turning waste into wealth with Cairo's garbage people (PHOTOS). [online]
Available at:
http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/culture/turning-waste-into-wealth-with-cairos-garbage-people-photos
_31874 [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017].
Zafar, S. (2017). Waste Management in Cairo | | EcoMENA. [online] Ecomena.org. Available at:
https://www.ecomena.org/tag/waste-management-in-cairo/ [Accessed 14 Oct. 2017].