Tins to Tapestry, Dates to Designer: How Cairo’s local green initiatives are providing a green lung amidst the thick black smog of the most polluted city in the world

“Garbage City of Cairo” by Michał Huniewicz is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Egypt’s eco-friendly efforts have long been tucked away beneath the shadows of the enormous malls and skyscrapers of New Cairo, the towering resort complexes of New Alamein City and the large- scale New Administrative Capital initiative, to name just a few recent environmentally disastrous government-funded projects. Much like the Masdar City and Burj Khalifa of the UAE, two ‘sustainable’ builds costing $22 and $1.5 billion respectively, Cairo plans to sustainably cultivate and urbanise its desserts to make way for an ever-growing population. In this raging whirlwind of ironic green ambition, it’s best perhaps to focus on smaller-scale, local initiatives that battle climate change, whether as a primary aim or not.

General consensus in Egypt is that yes, climate change is a big issue that needs attention but no, it is not a problem to be solved by Egyptians. Many conversations that start around the environment quickly become a discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue; think sustainability as a western concept that only the rich have the means to subscribe to. A lack of environmental concern is, unsurprisingly, a simple question of priorities; but given the rate at which global temperatures are rising, this rationalisation no longer stands.

The disorder that followed the 2011 Arab spring let farmers sell land to construction, and now as sea levels rise and the Nile floods the few agricultural areas left, up to 1.8 million people could be displaced through loss of jobs or housing, one study says.[1]  So, the need to repurpose and utilise existing space, as opposed to cultivating desert land at great costs, is tangible, and was keenly felt by Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy. Fathy based his designs around benefits to local peoples, cost effectiveness and the use of natural, renewable resources. He argued that governments lean toward impressive, modern, solar or wind powered builds, wilfully ignoring the needs of poorer classes. By employing local people to help build their own homes using soil and mud from their own land in New Gourna Village, and through layouts that both mirrored traditional courtyards and produced a much-needed cooling effect for hot Luxor summers, Fathy properly understood sustainability: serving both present and future generations simultaneously and, crucially, contextually.

In the UK we might find modern green technologies, brightly coloured bins and materials that make recycling easier, or apps like Depop, Vinted and Etsy that make staying away from fast fashion both green and trendy. Despite this, the UK’s recycling rate in 2020 was only 44%, while Egypt’s formal sector alone reached 45%, and its informal sector around 80%. So, when you think of Cairo, large-scale recycling schemes, popular used-clothing markets and sustainable architectural practices perhaps don’t spring to mind. But a stone’s throw away from innumerable skyscrapers, 5-star hotels and deluxe Nile cruise boats are budding green initiatives funded by both local and international NGOs that deserve some attention.

Anyone who’s been lucky enough to visit Cairo has heard of the Wekalet el-Balah market, more commonly known as just Wekala. This sprawling unregistered market found underneath Ramses bridge in downtown Cairo is brimming with used clothes imported from Europe. Founded in the 1800s by a group of merchants from Palestine, Lebanon and Syria, the market originally sold dates from nearby ports along the Nile, donning the name Market of the Dates (Wekalet el-balah). Now, the community of mostly Coptic Christians from Upper Egypt who run the market sell JuicyCouture sweatpants, Gucci sunglasses and Fendi clutches for 20-100LE (around £1-5). Wekala is of course primarily a source of both clothing and income for the poorer classes of Egyptian society, but it has also become a national hotspot for edgy young thrifters and upper-class Egyptians who want to shop second-hand to curb the fast fashion industry, or who want to buy cheap designer brands to then re-sell themselves.

Wekala also attracts celebrities looking to make eco-friendly fashion choices; actress Sarah Abdulrahman famously sported a chic black dress she’d bought from Wekala for 370LE (£16) in an Instagram post from Cairo International Film Festival’s closing ceremony of 2018. A haven for thrifters, a necessity for the poor; Wekala manages to span several different classes of Egyptian society, a remarkable feat in such a classist structure as Egypt’s, and in doing-so comprises a huge alternative to fast-fashion chains that appeals to a wide variety of Egyptians: a popular, affordable and more sustainable source of clothing.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure at Wekala, but the Zabbaleen (rubbish-men) of Cairo dare to refine the popular understanding of garbage completely. The Zabbaleen live in Mansheyat Nasser, an عشوائي(‘šwāʾ/ 3shwa2e) area (literally meaning random, denoting a slum or unregistered quarter), more commonly known as Garbage City, found at the foot of the Mokattam hills on the outskirts of Cairo. But, if 80-85% of every piece of rubbish that enters the city is recycled, then scraps of material tossed aside are no longer waste, and the Zabbaleen (literally “garbage people”) of Garbage City are actually recyclers, not rubbish-men.

Rebranding trash as income for the people of Mansheyat Nasser has given them pride in their work; they’ll readily tell you that they make good money and receive a good education thanks to NGOs like Hands on the Nile Foundation, which facilitates exchange programs with international charities like SOY to educate residents of Garbage City alongside their work schedules. For women in particular, life in Garbage City is funded by the organisation APE (Association for Protection of the Environment), which provides a formal structure within which women make bags, rugs and various other products from the materials brought into the city, which are then sold on. There’s even a Christmas section, distinctly marking this site as belonging to the Coptic Christian community of Garbage City - you can have a look here: https://apeegypt.com/. The women get a large share of the sales and their children go to after-school programs at the charity base to learn the trade.

Needless to say, this lifestyle was not first-choice for the majority of Garbage City’s dwellers ; thick, pungent aromas of decaying rubbish piled by doorways and on rooftops, producing swarming clouds of flies and dust, is what they call home. Yet, many of them do choose to return after having lived in central Cairo and attained university degrees, and the government has started to formally recognise and register recycling plants as companies and Zabbaleen as businesspeople. While often judged as inferior by their fellow Cairenes, the Zabbaleen have created an enormous recycling plant of which they are protectively proud, and rightly so; life in Garbage City is profitable, and the workers are extremely skilled, hand-sorting rubbish in record time. Necessity drives action in this case, more often than not the Zabbaleen have little-to-no choice about their lifestyle, but the action in question is impressively efficient with regards to sustainability, both by national and international standards.

So, Cairenes have effectively created extensive recycling networks; buying and reselling used items, collecting and distributing rubbish, weaving said rubbish into elaborate tapestries, or compressing broken shards into glass bottles and jars. Informal yet fruitful, the system relies on human meeting and exchange, a highly fitting model for such a personable city as Cairo.