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Continuing the saga of Cairo's garbage collectors via Almasry Alyoum
Sawiris, one of Egypt’s richest business families, has decided to tap into the potential of a profitable business model around garbage collection and recycling. A year and a half ago, the company pledged to perform garbage collection and recycling for poor communities in Cairo and its vicinities through the establishment of the Enhancement of Integrated Systems and Waste Recycling (EISWR) shareholding company. A pilot project was conducted in the 6th of October City, whereby the company hired the existing garbage collectors to take the trash to the dumps on the outskirts of serviced areas, where it’s sorted ahead of the recycling process. The project also recruited members of the community to work in its different components, including the cleaning, the recycling and the administration. “We are trying to apply this integrated systems model to other high income areas as a private sector," said Ayman Moharram, expert on waste management with EISWR. The integrated system includes the collection, the transportation and the recycling. “We started as a corporate social responsibility project, serving below income communities and now we’re looking into profit-making models," he added. EISWR is considered a business-oriented offspring to the Association of the Protection of the Environment, a development venture with interventions in garbage collection communities in Manshiyet Nasser and Tora. “Profit from waste is dependent on many factors, such as the quantity, the quality and the way the recycled material will be marketed for," Moharram added.