Egyptian govt. wiped out pigs, cities now overwhelmed with trash

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/world/africa/20cairo.html

by randomwalker • 17 years ago

46 45 17 years ago

patio11• 17 years ago

Speaking broadly, there are two systems for receiving services in Egypt: The government system and the do-it-yourself system. Instead of following the channels of bureaucracy, most people rely on an informal system of personal contacts and bribes to get a building permit, pass an inspection, get a driver’s license — or make a living.

While I realize the thought might not be popular in the corridors of power in Egypt or, for that matter, the NYT newsroom, a refinement on the "informal system of personal contacts and bribes" is a "market". Try them sometime -- they work fabulously!

Signed,

World That Does Not Wade Through Trash On Commute To Work

mahmud8• 17 years ago

It doesn't always work. The city of Napoli in Italy also has its own system of "informal system of personal contacts and bribes" to get things done: yes, the Mafia controls garbage collection there, and for some time it looked like this:

http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Napoli+garbage

Market needs accountability and transparency. Bring the transactions to the surface and let the offers compete.

robotrout• 17 years ago

> let the offers compete

http://images.google.com/images?q=Athens+garbage+strike

foldr6• 17 years ago

Yes, and when you have a market-based system for violating laws, that's called "corruption."

dan_the_welder• 17 years ago

When the government obstructs the market in egregious ways, it is called corruption. When the people circumvent it, it is called the black market and it is often the most important market when the government is corrupt or incompetent.

whye• 17 years ago

It seem to me like you are trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Trash collection, at least in major cities in the US, is done either by some branch of civic government (for example New York's Department of Sanitation), or by a private contractor, usually on a long term contract (Greenwaste Recovery in San Jose).

It's pretty far removed from what could be considered a free market. Yet it's not expensive (at least compared to things like phone service, water, or cable), its employees tend to be reasonably fairly compensated, and as you mentioned, it works. ...even if that reality might not be popular in libertarian circles.

If anything trash collection in Cairo sounds more like something approaching a free market than what large cities do in the states.

tlrobinson• 17 years ago

The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba.

Um, when pigs eat organic waste, don't they usually produce other "organic waste"? Where did all of that go before?

pierrefar• 17 years ago

Think of the pigs as lettuce->manure converters.

omouse• 17 years ago

manure meaning fertilizer so you can make more lettuce, YUM!

PebblesRox• 17 years ago

Also, they were lettuce -> pork converters :)

mahmud8• 17 years ago

There hasn't been pork eaten anywhere in Egypt for the last 1500 years or so. And before then, at least for the last 5000 years, it was unpopular among a sizable chunk of the working classes, slaves, refugees and migrants from the North East.

Live and learn, PebblesRox, live and learn.

newsdog• 17 years ago

Another example of the kind of thinking that has made the third world great.

itistoday• 17 years ago

Another example of what happens when supposedly rational monkeys prove to be completely irrational and base their actions on unsubstantiated emotions.

This doesn't just happen in the third world.

teeja• 17 years ago

As opposed to the irrational monkeys that dump their trash in the ocean? Or shoot satellites powered by plutonium into fast-decaying orbits? Or use ASATs to destroy satellites, then cry out for ways to get all that trash out of orbit? Or make TV sets full of heavy metals, then provide no way to dispose of them safely?

From my POV, there's plenty of irrational to go around. Finger-pointing is an exercise fraught with peril.

omarish• 17 years ago

Please don't call people monkeys; it's somewhat rude.

altano• 17 years ago

I visited Cairo ~10 years ago. It was so polluted that your nasal mucus (can I say 'booger' at my age?) would be black by midday. The entire area around the Pyramids of Giza smelled like camel shit, to a nauseating degree. The museums and cops were in a race to see which could be defiled faster for a quick buck.

The only redeeming quality of the entire city is Khan el-Khalili (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_el-Khalili), which is one of the coolest places I've ever been.

Nwallins• 17 years ago

I too visited about 10 years ago. I found the trash, poverty, chaos, and general attitudes on the street to be fairly repulsive. I referred to it as the armpit of the universe. I don't recall heavy air pollution though.

Giza was definitely overcommercialized to a nauseating degree, but I don't recall such a stench.

I felt that, as a westerner, I was walking around with a blinking dollar sign over my head.

We got out of Cairo as soon as we could, taking a 12 hour bus ride to Dahab. This place was a little paradise on the Sinai Peninsula, and the hospitable attitude by the locals was quite refreshing. We stayed a week and only returned to Cairo to fly back to Greece.

kyro• 17 years ago

Yeah, it really saddens me. As an Egyptian, I grew up watching old Egyptian movies my parents always had running on the tv, and still do. I would see the Nile in all it's glory, flanked on both edges by beautiful rows of palm trees, etc. I guess that's how it really was back then, according to the parents. But it's not like that anymore. I've gone back to the motherland about 3 times in the last decade and have always been thoroughly disappointed. It's dirty, underdeveloped, etc. You drive down one block and see rundown apartment buildings, and out of nowhere you see a marble crafted government building that has not one blemish or crack. However, being a Copt, I do find the monasteries to be one of the few preserved gems of Egypt, where you can see artwork from hundreds and hundreds of years ago still in its original form painted on huge rock walls. Other than that, and the handful of tourist spots (museums, libraries and whatever is left of the ancient ruins), I really can't suggest anywhere to visit in Egypt that'll give you that Indiana Jones, culturally rich 3rd world country feel to it. Even places like Alexandria, which are considered to be on the cleaner part of the spectrum, don't do much for me. There are places like Sharm El-Sheikh that are great, but consider them like the Cancun of the middle east - nothing really culturally original.

Overall, I don't enjoy visiting that country, but that's dependent on the specific places I choose to visit. For a place that was once a leader in philosophy and sciences, the inventor of papyrus, the builder of the pyramids, to have devolved into what it is today is really sad.

Egyptian govt. wiped out pigs, cities now overwhelmed with trash

Related Stories