Cairo, Egypt - Large city problems

5/15&16/2012 Cairo has the common big city problems: traffic, pollution and trash.  The traffic was pure chaos with pedestrians sharing the street with donkey carts, three wheeled taxis, small cars, small trucks, large trucks and buses.  I don’t know if there were lines on the roads or traffic lights, but apparently it didn’t matter.  Watch the video. Can you tell which lane we are in?

But through all of this chaos, everyone seemed to get where they were going. (Think multiple lines of ants zipping in different directions.) I did see some cars with scrapes down the side, but our huge bus made it through two days of touring unscathed.  Hats off and a round of applause to our marvelous driver. (Mom started the trip sitting in the front seat but moved back a seat to calm her nerves.  She had witnessed enough chaos.)  I also asked about the burned out building in the background. It is staying that was as it is symbolic of the recent revolution. Ok, I understand that symbolism.

One of the most overwhelming sights that I saw as I rode in the bus from one tourist destination to another was the trash.  I want to cover this in one post and get it off of my mind because I don't want this city service issue to take away from all of the other wonders that I saw and the people who treated us so well.

I can differentiate dust and dirt from trash because I live in an area that shares a dusty environment (Phoenix, Arizona). I'm not going to point out general area dust because there is just no getting ahead of this problem when it is so constant.

 My first impression was that the trash was everywhere but as I looked through my photographs, I pieced together a different story.  I saw piles of filled white trash bags on the street. I saw workers dumping the trash in to containers and keeping the plastic bags.  I also saw a truck picking up the trash piles from the side of the street. And later I saw a trash dump with a little recycling action going on.  And, as a surprise to my "memory", I saw that businesses were trash free while other "general areas" had loose trash.  Let's look at each of those examples one by one.

 Piles of filled trash bags and workers dumping into mobile collection bins.  This must be a business service or a government service because two of the workers have uniforms.

The worker dumps the trash in to the bin and separates the bags.

The first time that I saw this man, I thought that he was dumping the trash and taking the bags. I totally missed that he was in a uniform and that there was real work happening here.

These are larger collection bins and would require a large truck for pick up.  The donkeys need to get out of the way.  There is also some parts recycling going on under the tree, behind the large green bins.

Trash pickup was done with a pick up truck and workers with shovels.

 Because the trash was out there in the open, it easy to get caught up in the visual effects and think that the city was just covered with trash.  But a closer look will show you that a lot of the businesses in my pictures had a clean area in front of the building.  There are animals on the left side, and they seem to stay in their section.  The white set of stairs is clean, as is the walkway and gutter in front of the building.

This is a larger area and while there is trash lose on the street, the farmer market area with the watermelons on the left is swept clean, as is the outdoor cafe on the right.

I did see a Trash dump with recycling efforts.  The efforts are manual but at least there is reuse.





In my opinion, this system works just fine until you throw in a few dust storms. We have these in Phoenix and overnight my pristine yard can be filled with palm tree pieces and other debris.  If it happens night after night during our stormy monsoon season, well...the yard stays trashy until I feel that the weather will cease for a while. Luckily, I have large trash bins for the trash and they are secure enough to contain the trash. I'm responsible for my own.  But when I lived in an apartment complex, I took my responsibility as far as taking out the trash and putting it into a common collection bin.  If someone tore apart the bin and scattered the trash, I would expect the complex owners or trash collection agency to clean it up.  The area that we drove through was filled with living complexes so the street pile was the destination of the garbage for a lot of families.

In conclusion, I had left Cairo with the opinion that the trash problem was constant and everywhere.  I am glad that I was able to dive a little deeper into the issue and determined that there was a system for pickup and that the individual businesses took the responsibility to keep storefront areas clean.  If there were more large trash containers (to get the trash bags contained and off of the street), then the pick up system needs to be enhanced.  Those trash containers are heavy. The trucks that gather the trash are normal pick-up trucks complete with driver and a shovel.  It is not easy to get the trash in the containers loaded to the truck bed.  So, trash piled in bags on the ground work better unless the collection is done by a large garbage truck.  Large garbage trucks add to traffic jams…add to pollution.

So perhaps the existing system works well and just needs more people doing the work.  How about some of these guys sitting around the hookah bar?

(There is a lot going on in this photo. I'll give you a closer look.)

I don't mean this guy. He has a business and is working it.

(And one thought that I have now that I am home and have had time to think about the experience:  I would have had my shoes polished more often.)

When I said that "someone at the hookah bar should do some work", I meant these guys, taking a break in the middle of the afternoon for a drink and a smoke.

This was quite common. All men. No women.

 Looks like I was caught taking photographs of the cafe.  At least he is smiling.

Nice shirt. Looks like heavy starch was used. Hmm, on the man in front with the striped shirt also.

He doesn't look real happy that I am snapping away. Or maybe that is his pensive look that he uses when the cameras are on him.

Anyway, thanks for letting me peak in to your world!