Cairo's contested Garbage

The study explores the Zabaleen’s contested geography and spatial
strategies in relation to their right to inner city areas and future relocation
to Cairo’s suburban new settlements . Over the decades, the Zabaleen
waste (garbage) collectors of Cairo, have created what is arguably one of
the world’s most efficient and sustainable resource-recovery and wasterecycling
systems. Yet the continuation of this intricate relationship
between community, environment and livelihood is jeopardised by the
official privatisation of solid waste services through contracts with
technology-intensive multinational corporations which threatens the
sustainability of the garbage collectors communities. This situation was
aggravated by recent official measures during the swine flu pandemic,
which were mainly directed towards the Zabaleen’s pigs rearing and waste
recycling economy. In addition the authorities plan to move the Zabaleen
activities further out of the city, claiming that this will turn their
neighbourhoods into cleaner living environments.