Cairo and Egypt are claiming to be able to turn trash into treasure, and at the same time keeping it green in Cairo.In an attempt to help curb the city's stifling pollution and meet their energy needs too, a few Cairo families have begun to recycle waste by generating biogas from rubbish.
Recovery from disaster
This is felt to be a face saving gesture following a disasterous decision to slaughter all the nation's pigs, on the pretext that they were a threat to public health. The pigs were wholly owned by the zabaleen, a Coptic Christian sect that, for generations had used them to consume and clean up the city's garbage.
It is an ambitious project that is still in its infancy but may just catch on in this teeming city of 18 million people, currently obscured in a dirty grey veil of haze produced by the fumes from millions of car exhausts.
American sponsored solution
The initiative to transform organic waste into alternative energy, not in itself a new idea, was started by an American, Thomas Culhane, in east Cairo's Manshiet Nasser slums, which are known locally as Garbage City.
He runs Solar Cities, a non-governmental organisation that looks to design and develop technologies that aim to solve very local problems.
Following a grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2007, he has been installing solar panels to produce hot water for families in Garbage City.
The Christian zabaleen
The initiative to transform organic waste into alternative energy, not in itself a new idea, was started by an American, Thomas Culhane, in east Cairo's Manshiet Nasser slums, which are known locally as Garbage City.
He runs Solar Cities, a non-governmental organisation that looks to design and develop technologies that aim to solve very local problems.
Following a grant from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2007, he has been installing solar panels to produce hot water for families in Garbage City.
The Christian zabaleen
This is where thousands of zabaleen, freelance trash collectors, hand-sort through tons of rubbish collected from the streets of the megalopolis and then sell recyclable material. In the past, the pigs consumed the edible waste material and in turn the zabaleen would eat the pigs and sustain their families.
Muslim acceptance
Muslim acceptance
The Solar Cities idea was well received and began to spread to the neighbouring mainly Muslim area of Darb al-Ahmar, prompting Culhane and Hanna Fathy, a Manshiet Nasser resident involved in the scheme, to offer families "biogas digesters."
Simple solution
Simple solution
Made from two simple plastic tanks and tubes, the digesters convert organic matter into biogas through a process in which bacteria decompose the matter to produce methane for cooking and fertiliser which can then be resold.
"One man's garbage is another man's gold mine. One woman's trash is another woman's treasure," Culhane said.
The alternative would be that "I would be throwing this garbage out in the streets, there would be rats, flies, cats and dogs."
Spend money to save
"One man's garbage is another man's gold mine. One woman's trash is another woman's treasure," Culhane said.
The alternative would be that "I would be throwing this garbage out in the streets, there would be rats, flies, cats and dogs."
Spend money to save
The solar panels allow a family of 10 to save around 30 Egyptian pounds (5.4 dollars) a month, and biogas trims a further 10 pounds monthly.
This can mean valuable savings in Egypt, where the average household salary is around 100 dollars a month.
So far, however, Solar Cities has installed just 30 solar panels and seven biogas digesters.
The main hurdle is cost. Solar panels cost up to 2,400 Egyptian pounds and the digesters cost 700 Egyptian pounds, in a country where gas and fuel are heavily subsidised by the government.
"It's a very good system which has a future here, especially now that they have killed our pigs," insists Fathy, who says he remains optimistic about the project despite the obstacles.
This can mean valuable savings in Egypt, where the average household salary is around 100 dollars a month.
So far, however, Solar Cities has installed just 30 solar panels and seven biogas digesters.
The main hurdle is cost. Solar panels cost up to 2,400 Egyptian pounds and the digesters cost 700 Egyptian pounds, in a country where gas and fuel are heavily subsidised by the government.
"It's a very good system which has a future here, especially now that they have killed our pigs," insists Fathy, who says he remains optimistic about the project despite the obstacles.
Unnecessary Pig Slaughter
In May, Egypt ordered the slaughter of the nation's 250,000 pigs as part of swine flu prevention measures, even though the World Health Organisation said that taking such a drastic measure was not scientifically justified.
The pigs, which ate the teeming city's organic waste, were already involved in a recycling process that provided revenue and food for their owners.
"In the past they fed the organic waste to the pigs but even the pigs could not eat it all," Culhane said.
"Now the pigs are gone and there is nothing to transform Cairo's organic waste into safe products except biogas digesters."
"I miss the sound of the pigs," Fathy said, gesturing to the slum's rooftops where the zabaleen have now taken to raising goats and chickens.
"These animals can't swallow what the pigs use to," he said.
"We don't have big goals, we just want to be catalysts, to spread seed by seed a garden of solutions that make sense," Culhane said.
If the systems were applied on a large scale, he said, "we could solve 50 percent of Egypt's pollution problem and eliminate mechanically the organic garbage problem."
In May, Egypt ordered the slaughter of the nation's 250,000 pigs as part of swine flu prevention measures, even though the World Health Organisation said that taking such a drastic measure was not scientifically justified.
The pigs, which ate the teeming city's organic waste, were already involved in a recycling process that provided revenue and food for their owners.
"In the past they fed the organic waste to the pigs but even the pigs could not eat it all," Culhane said.
"Now the pigs are gone and there is nothing to transform Cairo's organic waste into safe products except biogas digesters."
"I miss the sound of the pigs," Fathy said, gesturing to the slum's rooftops where the zabaleen have now taken to raising goats and chickens.
"These animals can't swallow what the pigs use to," he said.
"We don't have big goals, we just want to be catalysts, to spread seed by seed a garden of solutions that make sense," Culhane said.
If the systems were applied on a large scale, he said, "we could solve 50 percent of Egypt's pollution problem and eliminate mechanically the organic garbage problem."
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