4 ms·
In Egypt, specifically Cairo, it is more complicated than that. There is an entire pre-modern recycling system where a sizable group of the Christian minority
by 616c 11y ago
In Egypt, specifically Cairo, it is more complicated than that. There is an entire pre-modern recycling system where a sizable group of the Christian minority who are lower class or below the poverty line live in neighborhood known as Muqattam (or to Egyptians, Mu'attam مقطم). They take piles of garbage, feed garbage to the pigs, and sort anything, and I mean anything, recyclable for reuse and for profit selling it off.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokattam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mokattam
Also notes there is a church of stunning beauty inside this community. Almost all hipster study abroads, yours truly included, visit this once in their time in Egypt.
samaanchurch.com/en/miracle_en.php
They are frequently the focus of Western NGO work, specifically the children, and at one time a documentary and NGO project was initiated to teach them modern recycling techniques to implement abroad.
http://garbagedreams.com/ http://garbagedreams.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_Dreams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_Dreams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_Dreams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_Dreams
And a general note. And I do mean, general, not just to brc. I see a lot of comments, and I still, as an American of an overly privileged upbringing, that people have trouble with their cultural lense. It is incredibly easy to see "there's always a lot of rubbish sitting around, and also a lot of people sitting around," when in fact the situation is more complicated. These people have been doing recycling in a very dangerous way (to their health) and making a meager living long before such practices, in more sanitary ways, took off in the West.
From Egypt, I still miss the smell of burning garbage, as awful as it sounds, when I ride the ring road between a major suburb to downtown Cairo to get to school. It creates strong nostalgia in me, so I had to say something, as unrelated as this comment is.
- brc 11y agoI specifically noted in my comment that I know you cannot understand the underlying problems by watching TV.
- 616c 11y agoAnd hence I commented, in kind, with not addressing this at you. There is a wide and diverse audience in HN, and I wanted to point out they need to travel and see the world to better understand their culture and themselves, and the biases through which they evaluate the world. I am not being critical of you, I just wanted to give a good example of a deeper look at this particular example. I upvoted you and I am glad you gave space to such opinions, as tangential as they are to the article.
- brc 11y agoI have travelled extensively, and my experiences in places where rubbish piled up - in tourist areas as well, like coral reefs - made it very hard to understand for me. I pick up rubbish in my own neighbourhood if I see it. I agree that travel is a great way to look back though your own lens and see how you see the world.
- 616c 11y agoOh man, do we have a lot in common. I happen to spend a lot of time in the Gulf at the moment. Recycling is new, and the divide between Westerners long since acclimdated from their own environs and the stark opposite is amusing. Here, fully industrialized recycling has caught on, but white man's guilt is a special problem, as people like you and I only help to fill facilities overflowing with recyclables that cannot ship-and-sell locally, regionally, or globally. http://dohanews.co/qatar-dumps-400-tons-waste-daily-landfill/ http://dohanews.co/qatar-dumps-400-tons-waste-daily-landfill... The stigma from childhood in the US stays bad enough for me, I sometimes avoid tossing things and leave in the car 1-2 days just to recycle it at a rare recycling facility in my housing complex. Oh, and ironically no one in desert recycles glass. Intentional?