No more pigs, Cairo is covered in garbage

The streets of Cairo - Egypt have never been praised as clean. However, the pollution in the capital, which has been flooded with this garbage, has now become serious.

Cairo's current garbage crisis is not surprising at all. When the Egyptian Government killed all the pigs in the country last spring, it was warned that some cities would be flooded with garbage. Health experts also say this is a completely wrong strategy to deal with swine flu. The failure of the Egyptian Government has shown inconsistency and impatience when making discretionary decisions.

The wrong word ' kill pigs '

Pigs have taken on the role of ' consumption ' of organic waste. Now when all the pigs have been killed, mountains of food are decaying in the middle-class streets like Heliopolis or the poor streets of the community like Imbaba. Ramadan Hediya, 35, works as a supermarket delivery worker, living in Madinat el Salam, a low-income community in the Cairo suburbs. He said: 'The whole area is littered with garbage ', ' Every way is covered in garbage, just open the door to catch a little air you will see a pile of high waste on the road '.

In May 2009, when the fear of swine flu (H1N1) broke out for the first time, President Hosni Mubarak ordered the killing of all pigs in the country to prevent the spread of the disease. When the global health authorities declared pigs not an infectious agent, the Egyptian government argued that they not only acted for flu, but also for cleaning up their crowded, dirty settlements. zabaleen garbage collectors.

Garbage filled the streets of Cairo.(Photo: Nytimes)

Currently, the zabaleen streets are still filled with stinking garbage and flies as usual. But the scavengers did exactly what they said before: stop processing most of the organic waste. Instead, people buried organic waste wherever possible, or at the same time piled them up next to the garbage cans scattered in the city - the capital that multinational companies put in effort. Desperate to deal with the terrible waste situation here. ' They killed the pigs, let them go and clean the city ', Moussa Rated, who lives in the zabaleen area, previously worked as a pick-up worker and raised pigs angry. Now, there is no pig left to let the government take care of it .

Where is the failure?

The government's response - initially to deal with swine flu - has now become a social, environmental and political dilemma for this Arab populous city. 'The main problem in Egypt is contingency plans,' said the Agriculture Department's Head of Communicable Diseases, Sabir Abdel Aziz Galal. We are busy with other things and leave it ".

The work of picking up garbage in Cairo is undertaken by the unofficial labor division. In an effort to improve the city's environmental situation and replace the scavenging - zabaleen community, the government has hired multinational companies and trash cans located throughout the city. However, the government has made mistakes and failed to understand the nature of the community here. They never take out garbage and get used to someone coming to the garbage collection door. For more than half a century, zabaleen - has become a Catholic Indian community living on the eastern edge of the city. They collect garbage, sell waste and use organic waste to feed pigs - a source of life for the whole family. Killing pigs at the same time is ' the dumbest thing they have ever done ,' annoyed Ms. Kamel. ' This is just another example of officials who are ignorant. '

Other shortcomings

Garbage is just the most recent example of the Egyptian Government 's inability to meet the most basic needs of the people in addition to water, housing, health and education issues. .

The government announced it would close schools until the first week of October to allow more time to prepare for the next possible outbreak of swine flu. Public opinion criticized the wrong action at this time, they thought that the government should have had enough time to prepare in the last 3 months of summer vacation.

The leaders of the three major provinces of Egypt have announced that they have changed their actions to ensure the safety of students. Overcrowded classes (more than 60) will be split into two, and the number of school sessions will be no more than 3 sessions a week. This announcement was once again criticized by public opinion.

'The country is in trouble, this is the result of a government system lacking coordination among agencies, ' said Galal Amin, economist, writer and social commentator. they made haste, just to please the president . " Cairo's streets are always full of children and garbage. Now, when there are no more pigs to clean up, the schools are temporarily closed, the number of children and garbage on the road is increasing. " The Egyptians are in big trouble, " Mr. Amin commented.