1The rate of waste recycling in Egypt is remarkable given the lack of investment in this area by public authorities. Salvage, re-use and recycling practices fuel a real economy that is plugged into global networks. This economy is sustained by private initiatives involving rubbish collectors (zabbaleen*), ambulant buyers of unwanted domestic objects (bekia*), and recyclers of industrial waste and the refuse from demolished buildings (see insert below).

2The zabbaleen are key players in the collection and treatment of household and commercial waste in Cairo. The main recovery and re-use activity concentrated for long on feeding organic waste to pigs. After the wholesale slaughter of this livestock in 2009, in connection with the H1N1 “swine” flu, this activity declined significantly.

3In fact, the changing consumption habits of Cairenes are changing the contents of rubbish bins. The amount of manufactured products, especially plastic, cardboard and aluminium packaging, is rising, even if organic waste still represents the majority of salvaged waste.

6.13 Composition of waste in Egypt

4The collection of unwieldy and unwanted domestic objects is known as bekia or ruba bekia (from the Italian roba vecchia, “old stuff”) and is handled by ambulant junk dealers. Either the discarded items are repaired and re-used, or they are recycled in particular sectors of the zabbaleen workshops. The collected objects are sorted and broken down in neighbourhoods like Ezbet Abu Hashish in Cairo. Repaired objects and spare parts reappear in resale areas such as Souq el-Gomaa (Friday Market) in a cemetery near Kobri el-Abageyya. Objects that are beyond repair or re-use, often metal waste, are sold in districts that specialise in recycling, such as Abu Zaabal to the north of Cairo. This area holds foundries where the metal recovered from the bekia and demolished buildings is transformed into secondary raw materials, for example, copper wire, or used to manufacture cast-iron drain gratings, or wrought iron bars and gates.

6.14 Souq el-Gomaa, Cairo, 2014

6.15 Second-hand goods on sale at Souq el-Gomaa, 2014

The mechanisation and industrialisation of recycling

5Since the 1980s the zabbaleen’s equipment for the recovery of new materials has diversified. As regards plastic, workshops for grinding, washing, spin-drying and extrusion have been established which now allow the zabbaleen to carry out operations that add value to material that was hitherto resold unprocessed. This recycling machinery was initially imported from Europe and East Asia (China and Taiwan), before being replaced by locally built machinery, thanks to expertise acquired by repairers when maintaining the original equipment. These “Made in Egypt” versions have since been exported to neighbouring Arab countries (e.g. Libya and Sudan). They are cheaper to make, can be modified to suit local needs, and are more easily repaired.

6.16 An Egyptian-made plastic extruder in Manshiat Nasser, Cairo

6.17 Recycling cast iron in Cairo, 2016

The internationalisation of plastic processing

6During the 2000s certain waste recyclers in Cairo established direct contact with importers based in China and sent them containers full of plastic in the form of compacted balls or granules that had been washed and processed in Egypt. Since plastic is derived from petrochemicals indexed to the price of oil, the trade benefitted from the rising price of the barrel of oil, and exports to China quickly increased. However, the Egyptian plastics manufacturing industry lobbied the government and in 2007 an export tax was placed on every ton of ground plastic waste (LE1000/ton, i.e. roughly $200), which has since been increased.

7The tax halted plastic exports to China to the initial advantage of the Egyptian industry, which could buy it at reduced prices on the national market. In the 2010s Chinese investors opened recycling plants in Egypt to benefit from the low price of Egyptian recycled plastics. These factories soon became the zabbaleen’s preferred partners because of the easy payment terms – cash on delivery.

8This “Golden Age” of plastic exports to China ended with the fall in oil prices of 2008-2009 and the global economic crisis: the sale of Egyptian recycled plastic has been suspended since then. The future became even less certain after the implementation in January 2018 of new Chinese regulations demanding high levels of purity in imported secondary raw materials in order to encourage domestic recycling. This decision has upset the international traffic of waste and has deprived Egyptian recyclers of opportunities outside the control of local manufacturers.