{"id":14698,"date":"2014-05-05T19:17:10","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T23:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/articles\/international-conversation-on-zero-waste-may-2014\/"},"modified":"2024-05-01T17:26:44","modified_gmt":"2024-05-01T17:26:44","slug":"international-conversation-waste-2014","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/ilsr.org\/es\/article\/composting-for-community\/international-conversation-waste-2014","title":{"rendered":"International Conversation on Zero Waste, May 2014"},"template":"","class_list":["post-14698","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article_type-article","initiatives-composting-for-community","topics-zero-waste","authors-neil-seldman"],"acf":{"details":{"featured_image":8442,"background_color":"","article_type":[134],"initiative":15,"display_event_fields":false,"start_date":null,"end_date":null,"start_time":null,"end_time":null,"time_zone":"America\/New_York","virtual_event":false,"location":"","topics":[121],"impact_areas":false,"abstract":"

During a recent e-mail interchange, Mal Williams of Zero Waste Wales, Plasnewydd, Cardiff, reported on disappearing waste in that country. In order to maximize efficiency, add value to collected recyclables and reduce available materials for incineration, co-mingled recycling (single stream), is being phased out. Nancy Gorrell, Berkeley, CA commented: Hooray for Wales! Here in Berkeley, we … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","authors_tax":[605]},"sidebar":{"title":"\u00cdndice"},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":null,"component_wysiwyg":{"content":"

<\/div>

During a recent e-mail interchange, Mal Williams of Zero Waste Wales, Plasnewydd, Cardiff, reported on disappearing waste in that country. In order to maximize efficiency, add value to collected recyclables and reduce available materials for incineration, co-mingled recycling (single stream), is being phased out.<\/p>\n

Nancy Gorrell, Berkeley, CA commented:
\nHooray for Wales! Here in Berkeley, we are having to restructure rate fees, because recycling has replaced garbage.<\/p>\n

Mary Lou Van Deventer, Urban Ore, Berkeley, CA, commented:
\nQuite so. Berkeley’s rates are based on garbage, which is dwindling, and therefore income is falling, leading to higher rates to pay for everything.\u00a0 Garbage income finances recycling, so as garbage falls and recycling increases, recycling is doing more work but there’s less money to cover it.\u00a0 Moreover, City Hall actually refuses to restructure the rates because they are convinced the people want to think recycling is free.\u00a0 And they won’t tell.\u00a0 (Recyclers want to get paid – shh.)<\/p>\n

Recycling deserves its own fees.<\/p>\n

Neil Seldman commented:
\nRecyclers need a fair share.<\/p>\n

Mal Williams then provided this interesting update on the Zabbaleen of Cairo, Egypt:
\nFair share \u2013 yes indeed. It\u2019s amazing how this works around the globe isn\u2019t it. We get bogged down in the local by-law detail of all this whilst over 50% of the globe scavenges on the waste tip<\/p>\n

The Zabbaleen in Cairo are real heroes of the environment. They have been \u201cvoluntarily\u201d collecting garbage from every apartment \u2013currently 5 million plus \u2013 EVERY DAY since about 1949. Until the Mubarrak government culled their 350,000 pigs because of swine flu they existed on the proceeds of that pig rearing (they sold 80% of them) and since the 70\u2019s the revenue from the dry recyclate they also collected.<\/p>\n

They have 5 million individual informal household contracts and the city of Cairo depends on them for it entirely.<\/p>\n

However until a few weeks ago not they received not a penny for ACTUALLY DOING THE COLLECTION WORK. The government money US$50million per annum goes to European waste companies who throw a few skips around the city for people to fill up because they know the Zabbaleen collect 85% of the stuff that arises and recycle it \u2013YES 85%. Higher than San Francisco OR South Australia and they themselves didn\u2019t realise they are world leaders because they are the lowly \u201cCairo waste collectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Zabbaleen are 175,000 Coptic Christian ex pig-farmers from Egypt\u2019s south, driven to Cairo to scavenge food scraps to feed their pigs because of severe drought between 1944 and 1949, looked down upon by an essentially Muslim community in Cairo because they live at subsistence level in family groups \u2013now in inner city ghettos (lots of google images here).<\/p>\n

Dr Laila Iskandar has worked with these guys for 20 years or more \u2013 she won the Goldman prize in 1994 for her efforts and was appointed as the Environment minister in Egypt\u2019s post-Morsi government to \u201csolve the waste problem\u201d a problem created by previous government\u2019s trying to ignore the Zabbaleen contribution.<\/p>\n

Laila has now \u201cofficially recognised\u201d their contribution and is working with money provided by the Gates foundation Spirit of Youth Project \u2013 to \u201cformalise\u201d the Zabbaleen operations (i.e., make them look like serious operators by incorporating them and getting them to make plans to modernise)\u00a0 \u2013 currently they still use donkey carts and it\u2019s all very family scale. But the product they present to market is top notch quality and they seem to get a reasonable price for it (difficult to be sure of that of course).<\/p>\n

If you walked into a city where some company was extracting 85% of the garbage and recycling it for free \u2013 what would you do??<\/p>\n

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