Garbage City

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Garbage City is a slum settlement in the city of Cairo. The residents living there collect and find pieces of reusable parts which they try to sell later on. Although these slums have streets, shops, and apartments like any other area, they lack infrastructure and often have no running water, sewage or electricity.

The city's garbage is brought to Garbage City and used by the inhabitants of Garbage City, the Zabbaleen people, who use it to make a living. As a passerby walks or drives down the road he will see large rooms stacked with garbage with men, women or children crouching and sorting the garbage into usable or sellable. Families specialize in the type of garbage they sort and sell. One room will have children sorting out plastic bottles, while the next will have women separating cans from the rest. Anything that can be reused or recycled is saved by one of the numerous families in Garbage City. Various recycled paper and glass products are made and sold from the city, while metal is sold by the kilo to be melted down and reused. Carts pulled by horse or donkey are often stacked 8 to 10 feet high with the recyclable goods.

The economic system in garbage City is classified as people working in the informal sector. Most families typically have worked in the same area and type of specialization in the garbage piles and continue to make enough money to support themselves.

Coptic Christians are the predominant members of Garbage City. They are well known for herding swine within the city, which are fed edible pieces of garbage and marketed across Cairo to Coptic Christian establishments. The Cave Cathedral or St Sama'ans Church, used by the Coptic Christians in Garbage City, is the largest church in the Middle East with seating for 20,000 people.