Zabbaleen
Sign in to saveThe Zabbaleen ( '''', ) is a word which literally means "garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic. The contemporary use of the word in Egyptian Arabic is to mean "garbage collectors". In cultural contexts, the word refers to teenagers and adults who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors since approximately the 1940s. The Zabbaleen (singular: ', ) are also known as Zarraba (singular: Zarrab), which means "pig-pen operators." The word ' came from the Egyptian Arabic word '''' (, ) which means "garbage".
~39 min read
Encyclopedic overview
29 sectionsContents
- Historical background
- First wave of migration
- Second wave of migration
- 1989 agreement between Wahiya and Zabbaleen
- Notable people
- Zabbaleen settlements
- Main settlements
- Living conditions
- Health
- Religion
- Cave church
- Zabbaleen recycling methods
- Trash collecting procedure
- Sorting
- Use of pigs
- Creation of goods using recycled materials
- International recognition
- Contracting out municipal waste collection
- Selling of contracts to foreign companies
- Impact on Cairo
- Impact on Zabbaleen
- Pig cull
- Government order
- Explanations for the cull
- Effect on the Zabbaleen
- Effect on Cairo
- See also
- References
- External links
The Zabbaleen ( '''', ) is a word which literally means "garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic. The contemporary use of the word in Egyptian Arabic is to mean "garbage collectors". In cultural contexts, the word refers to teenagers and adults who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors since approximately the 1940s. The Zabbaleen (singular: ', ) are also known as Zarraba (singular: Zarrab), which means "pig-pen operators." The word ' came from the Egyptian Arabic word '''' (, ) which means "garbage".
Spread out among seven different settlements scattered in the Greater Cairo Urban Region, the Zabbaleen population is between 50,000 and 70,000. The largest settlement is Mokattam village, nicknamed "Garbage City," located at the foot of the Mokattam Plateau, next to Manshiyat Nasser. The Zabbaleen community has a population of around 20,000 to 30,000, over 90 percent of which are poor Coptic Christians living in self-built homes, many in slum conditions.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Zabbaleen” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.