Cairo's Zabaleen Won a Seat at the Table Over Bottle-Eating Machines

The Zabaleen are Cairo's door-to-door rubbish collectors, mostly from the Coptic Christian minority, whose families have worked the trade since the 1940s. Their Zabaleen Syndicate, headed by Shehata El-Moqaddas, publicly challenged two reverse vending machines installed in Dokki that left collectors out of the plan. After the dispute went public, Giza governorate agreed that the zabaleen could empty the machines and pay the company for the contents, and a governorate spokesman said officials would work on integrating them. Academic research cited by Reuters estimates the zabaleen collect about half of Cairo's waste and recycle around 80% of it.