In early November 2024, several members of Fairville Partner Organisations gathered in Cairo, Egypt, visiting the Giza FvLab and exchanging experiences and perspectives. During the same period, Fairville members participated in a debriefing session of the ‘Habitat Village’ at the World Urban Forum 2024 (WUF12) in New Cairo. This post focuses on the Giza FvLab visit and the inter-lab exchanges (among Giza, West Attica, Dakar and London FvLabs) and shares key moments and reflections deriving from the field visits and discussions in Cairo, presented by members of West Attica and Giza FvLab.
1/ Field trip to Dahshur: An in-depth look at Giza FvLab’s field of action
Our first shared activity was a half-day field trip to the site of Giza FvLab’s initiatives, Dahshur village in the peri-urban area of Cairo (Giza Governorate). The visit offered a glimpse into Dahshur’s reality, enabling us to observe the area’s severe waste management challenges up close and understand their impacts on the community. It provided also an opportunity to meet local actors involved in Giza FvLab, gain insights into their efforts and the daily lives shaped by these challenges, and grasp their roles and modes of participation in the FvLab’s co-production efforts.
Starting from the NSCE office in Zamalek, in the heart of Cairo, we boarded a minivan and headed south toward the peri-urban municipality of Mansheyat Dahshur. Leaving the western outskirts of Cairo behind, we continued our journey for about an hour, driving along the Mariouteya canal that flows through the Nile floodplains. Despite serving as an irrigation source for nearby crops, the stream appears heavily contaminated, with garbage floating on its surface. To our surprise, the construction of brick walls along the stream was underway, blocking the view to the water. As Ahmed explained, it is common practice to erect visual fences to hide the trash from tourists heading to the nearby pyramids, instead of addressing the pollution.
On the way to Dahshur village, 4 November 2024. Photos: Artemis Koumparelou, Giorgos Velegrakis
As we approach Dahshur village, a large pile of garbage blatantly spills across and into the stream. However, the most striking sight of uncontrolled waste disposal awaits us inside the village. After picking up Alaa at Abu Sir and Samir at Saqqarah (local members of Giza FvLab), we continue driving along the main dirt roads towards Dahshur and we stop at two major disposal sites: one beside the school complex and another at a small canal in a peripheral neighborhood. As we gaze at the mounds of garbage next to the houses, left speechless by the sight, a tricycle loaded with sorted plastic items passes by. The Giza FvLab team explains the shortcomings of the municipal waste collection system and the Lab’s attempts to address the issue collectively by co-producing a waste management plan for the village.
Visit to Dahshur village, 4 November 2024. Photos: Artemis Koumparelou, Eleni Mougiakou
After the tour inside the village, we all headed to the agricultural local CSO ‘Dahshur Today’ in the countryside near Dahshur. Over a delicious lunch of local food, we had the opportunity to engage in a detailed discussion with the local members of Giza FvLab and listen to the community's challenges and concerns about the harsh waste management issue. With the assistance of the NSCE team in translation, the present FvLabs (Giza, West Attica, Dakar and London) exchanged experiences, ideas and potential opportunities in addressing their unique challenges.
Lunch and meeting at the local CSO ‘Dahshur Today’ near Dahshur village, 4 November 2024.
Photos: Artemis Koumparelou
2/ Visit at the ‘Zabbaleen’ Neighbourhood: An alternative paradigm of waste management and social sustainability
On the 7th November 2024 we visited the Manshiyat Naser neighbourhood on the southeaster outskirts of Cairo. The settlement that has transformed from a 1970s slum into a remarkable hub of recycling practice, where 60% of Cairo’s solid waste is collected and processed. Romani Badir - inhabitant, secretary of the Cairo waste collector association for community development, and expert in plastic recycling - guided us through the neighbourhood, showcasing the various garbage sorting and handling sites and facilities. He shared the story of this unique waste collection and recycling system, which sustains the entire community, and gave insights into plastic waste processing.
Upon arriving at the Manshiyat Naser neighbourhood, one is immediately struck by the constant flow of trucks carrying garbage and sorted materials. As Romani explains, the community of waste pickers - initially reliant on donkeys - now collects 11,000 tonnes of garbage daily from across Cairo, on a 24hour basis. Even more surprisingly, this Coptic community, home to 100,000 residents including migrant workers from neighbouring areas and countries, has created an ecosystem where 90% of collected garbage is recycled. Walking through the streets of the neighbourhood, we notice that the ground floors of buildings are dedicated to manual waste sorting (a task primarily carried out by women), while the upper stories serve as living spaces. According to our guide, the entire community relies on waste for their livelihood. Each family enterprise specializes in processing a specific material, with approximately 600 recycling facilities and over 350 machines operating in the area. At the association where Romani is involved, we had the opportunity to see such a machine in operation, melting garbage and producing plastic that is being diverted to nearby factories.
Visit to the Manshiyat Naser neighbourhood at the outskirts or Cairo and guided tour by Romani Badir,
7 November 2024. Photos: Artemis Koumparelou, Giorgos Velegrakis, Paloma Anger
The visit to this waste collectors’ community was a revealing experience for both FvLabs (Giza and West Attica) that focus on questions and disparities associated to waste management. For Giza FvLab the connection with Manshiyat Naser’s waste collector community could be a great opportunity for knowledge transfer and potential collaboration towards tackling the problem of uncontrolled solid waste disposal in Mansheyat Dahshur village. At the same time, for members of West Attica FvLab, the comparison of the Manshiyat Naser example with the Greek case was striking. The recycling rates achieved by Greece’s official waste management system fall far short of the impressive accomplishments of the Manshiyat Naser commmunity's self-organised model. Namely, their practice could serve as an inspiring example for waste pickers in West Attica, who remain invisible and unrecognized, operating in grey areas, despite playing a crucial role in the recycling chain.
3/ Working meeting - exchange between Giza and West Attica FvLab: co-production, environmental inequalities, waste issues
In the afternoon, after the insightful visit to the Zabbaleen neighbourhood, we returned to central Cairo for a focused meeting among the Giza and West Attica FvLabs at the NSCE office. The Labs discussed their ongoing and planned activities, as well as the current dynamics and challenges in their co-production processes. The dialogue allowed for deeper understanding of commonalities and differences between the Labs and evolved into an early attempt to develop a comparative frame under the shared focus of environmental inequalities and co-production approaches to tackle them. The poor and uneven waste management practices along with associated public health concerns - particularly within peri-urban areas – emerges as a clear thematic intersection between the two Labs. Despite their unique contexts, which shape distinct co-production pathways, both Labs face similar barriers. In both cases, the marginalization and disempowerment of local communities and problematic relationships with local authorities further complicate efforts to develop solutions. At the same time, they share similar promising practices, such as introducing knowledge sharing processes as means of empowerment of the community, and engaging children in the co-production process, through schools as access points.
Understanding commonalities and differences enables the reflection on inequalities from different perspectives, the identification of appropriate reference points, and can contribute in strengthening alliances and scaling up collective action. The exchange between the two Labs on environmental inequalities, waste management challenges, and the marginalization of peri-urban areas remains an open and ongoing dialogue.
This post was written by Artemis Koumparelou and Paloma Anger.
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