Manshiyat naser
Encyclopedia
Manshiyat naser, also known as Garbage City, is a slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...

 settlement at the base of Mokattam Hill
Mokattam
Mokattam and the Moqattam Hills, , also Muqattam and Moqattam Mountain, is the name of a hill range and a suburb in them, located in southeastern Cairo, Egypt.-Landform:...

 on the outskirts of Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. Its economy revolves around the collection and recycling of the city's garbage. Although the area has streets, shops, and apartments as other areas of the city, it lacks infrastructure and often has no running water
Running Water
Running Water may be:* Running Water, Tennessee, former name of Whiteside, Tennessee* Running Water, South Dakota, a community in Bon Homme County, South Dakota* "Running Water" from the 1983 album The Present...

, sewage, or electricity.

Coptic district

Coptic Christians were originally the predominant inhabitants of Manshiyat naser, though in recent decades the area's Muslim population has grown. The Christians are well known for herding swine within the city, which are fed edible pieces of garbage and marketed across Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...

 to Coptic Christian establishments. However in the spring of 2009 the Egyptian government, in response to the worldwide threat
2009 flu pandemic
The 2009 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the second of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus , albeit in a new version...

 of swine flu, embarked on a massive program to cull the herds of pigs in Manshiyat naser.

The Cave Cathedral or St Sama'ans
Simon the Tanner
Simon the Tanner , also known as Saint Simon the Shoemaker , is the Coptic Orthodox saint associated with the story of the moving the Mokattam Mountain in Cairo, Egypt, during the rule of the Muslim Fatimid Caliph al-Muizz Lideenillah while Abraham the Syrian was the Pope of the Coptic Orthodox...

 Church, used by the Coptic Christians in Garbage City, is the largest church in the Middle East, with seating for 15,000 people.

Garbage and recycling

The city's garbage is brought to Manshiyat naser by the Zabbaleen
Zabbaleen
The Zabbaleen are a minority religious community of Coptic Christians who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors for approximately the past 70 to 80 years. Zabbaleen means "Garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic...

, or garbage collectors, who then sort through the garbage to attempt to retrieve any potentially useful or recyclable items. 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 unsellable or sellable. Families typically specialize in a particular type of garbage they sort and sell — one room of children sorting out plastic bottles, while the next of women separating cans from the rest. Anything that can be reused or recycled is saved by one of the numerous families in Manshiyat naser. 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 2.5 to 3m (8 to 10 feet) high with the recyclable goods.

The economic system
Economic system
An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...

 in Garbage City is classified as 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.

Media

Garbage Dreams
Garbage Dreams
Garbage Dreams is a 2009 feature length documentary film produced and directed by Mai Iskander. It premiered at the 2009 Phoenix Film Festival on April 3, 2009...

is a 2009 documentary directed by Mai Iskander about boys born and raised in Garbage City and how they must look for new ways to support themselves and their families as trash collection in Cairo changes.
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