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Step Inside Garbage Dreams. Learn the Zaballeen Recycle 80 Percent of Trash
Garbage Dreams was shot over four years in Cairo. The film, which premiers on April 27 at 10:00 pm on PBS, documents the life of the Zaballeen, which means the garbage people in Arabic. Cairo is a city of 18 million people with no organized trash removal system. But thanks to the Zaballeen people who populate the largest working trash village in the world, Mokattam, 80 percent of the trash they remove is recycled.
The Zaballeen People Make Their Living From Recycling
The Zaballeen, who have collected Cairo's garbage for decades, are not paid for their services, but are born into the trash trade and grow up in the world's largest garbage village, a ghetto located on the outskirts of the city. Today, 60,000 Zaballeen people make their living recycling as much of the city's trash as possible and then selling the recycled goods to companies within Egypt and in other countries like China, France, and Belgium. The Zaballeen people, though largely ignored by the rest of Egypt's society, are a closely knit community. And though the work is dangerous at times and families are poor, the people formerly had food to eat and shelter.
Foreign Trash Companies Only Recycle 20 Percent
But recently, Cairo has started to contract large trash companies from Italy and France to come in and pick up the city's trash. These huge trash trucks, though more modern and sleek, recycle only 20 percent of the garbage that they pick up. It's so unsettling to see a city that was doing it right for so many years, try and urbanize by loading up landfills like westernized cultures. The Zaballeen are fighting tooth and nail to hold on, but more and more of their work is being taken away by foreign companies.
The film follows the lives of three Zaballeen boys as they try and make a living in Egypt's trash trade. Seventeen year old Adham has become man of the house since his father was sent to jail. The ambitious young man dreams of traveling abroad to learn the modern techniques of his trade. Osama, a 16 year old who's antics throughout the movie are a source of contention for his family and friends, decides to go and work for one of the foreign trash companies. And Nabil, an 18 year old, longs to have his own apartment so he can finally become a man and get married.
Support the Recycling School
The Recycling School in Mokattam is the children's future. Many of the children are trained at a community recycling school where they learn safe recycling techniques from a young age. The school's mission is to educate the Zaballeen youth and teach them about recycling. The school is under the constant threat of eviction and is trying to raise $300,000 to go towards building their own facility. The Recycling School needs your help to survive and to modernize the Zaballeen's techniques so that recycling remains a priority in Cairo. Donate here.