Manshiyat Nasser, better known as Garbage City, is a slum area on the outskirts of Cairo with a population of about 60,000. Almost every area here is covered with garbage. Streets so that you can no longer see the asphalt, even roofs. A place, a situation, a life circumstance that no one wants to see, but everyone should see, everyone should know exists. Every day we produce about 3.5 million tons of garbage, this is one of the places where it accumulates.
When you enter this place, you literally dive into another world. Such an intense smell of decay and rotten food envelops you, flies buzz around, the odd rat scurries by and the soles of your shoes stick to the garbage-strewn floor.
Then you see animals, dogs, cats, goats, emaciated, sick, sitting in the garbage, digging, looking for food. And getting sicker. Because they can't know what they are eating there, that they are sitting in a pile of plastic, that they are being poisoned. Does any living being deserve such a living condition?
And then you see other people. living, working in the garbage. Children standing on piles of garbage, playing, barefoot. Children who have to work here. Children who fall ill at an early age. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine such a life for your child? Nobody wants that. Nobody deserves that. But these children have no choice right now. In Garbage City, people sort, process and recycle all the garbage, creating an ecological system. But still, this is no place to live, no place for children. But you know what is the most amazing thing? The people here, the children, they laugh, they are full of kindness and friendliness. They may not be in the right place, but their heart is.
These things are so far away from us, from our everyday lifes, that we think they don't affect us. But they do. They not only affect us, we cause them. And as small as each step may seem, it makes such a difference if just one of us starts to produce less waste. To consume less. Thinking about more than our own immediate surroundings. Because we are all entitled to breathe healthy air.
this is not their garbage, it is ours
stop it
