In the heart of Cairo in the Mokattam neighbourhood, precisely in a district known as Mansheyet Nasser, there exists the Garbage Collecators’ Area; aka ‘El Zabaleen’, established in the 1940s. 

It is not the sweetest smelling place, as might be expected — there is more dust, dirt and pollution than average, and in inhuman conditions the garbage collectors share their living quarters with the mules and donkeys that pull their carts and the dumps — but it it is Cairo’s most efficient recycling plant, with some 90 per cent of the waste collected there recycled.

It wasn’t until 1982 that, unable to withstand the environmental conditions and their consequences for the community living there, the philanthropist Yousreya Loza-Sawiris decided that something had to be done, and eventually founded the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE).

The miracle began when, starting her organic fertiliser plant project on the site of a defunct factory there, Loza-Sawiris used her considerable planning prowess to organise the daily transportation of animal waste to her plant, thereby providing the community with employment for eight years. The counsel of agriculture scholar George Stino ensured the success of her efforts to produce fertiliser she could market effectively, spending the revenue on literacy classes. 

Loza-Sawiris also worked to provide the garbage collectors with housing they could own, providing separate shelter and veterinary care for their animals, as well as access to education and health care. It was a struggle to persuade the community to live separately from their animals, but she eventually managed the feat, and by 1984 — when the APE was inaugurated — the area had turned into a picturesque oasis. 

Loza-Sawiris had plenty of help: anthropologist Marie Asaad for the social developmental aspect, Sister Sarah from the Beit Mariam convent in Beni Sweif, Upper Egypt, Father Père Boulad and Hannah El Raheb made up the nucleus of the Board of Directors. The social entrepreneur and former minister of the environment and of urban development Laila Iskander joined in 1987. Drawing on her expertise, her Columbia PhD, and her intense passion, Iskander taught girls how to use the hand loom. 

Iskander brought in her own team as well. “I realised that I would not be able to fulfil the task on my own, so I sought help,” she explains. “I had to ask some acquaintances of mine to give me a helping hand. I chose a handful of ladies, being well aware of the potential of each of them.” Those volunteers included: Shadia El Gamal, a pioneer in the field of design; Samira Abu Seif, who would handle the medical and social aspects; and Nadine Barsoum, to fix the IT program. 

“I supplemented the literacy classes with a class in drawing designs and plans with Hanaan Safa,” Iskander adds. “All this was taught to the girls, who grasped the technique quite well. We now have twelve senior recyclers to run the whole project on their own,” she announces proudly, “from warehousing to marketing, to handling exports, to income, to report writing, product development, IT, and the hygienic aspects.” Among the recycled products are rugs, bags, placemats made from fabric discarded by the textile industry. Rags are also turned into beautiful patchwork products.

In 1992, Marie Asaad and one of the APE girls attended a paper recycling convention in Cyprus, and brought back the technique, using juice blenders. “Now we have industrial scale machinery and we also produce greeting cards, but we use clean paper out of concern for our staff who might contract disease while retrieving paper from the garbage. From can lids we produce ladies’ handbags, from coffee pods we produce jewellery and accessories. Mrs. Suzie Greiss, now APE Chairperson, also introduced glass recycling: producing glass jars, bottles, cups, bowls, mirrors, lenses, window panes, chemicals, ceramics, insulators…”

Meanwhile Loza-Sawiris established two new branches of the APE in Torah and Haram City, where there are major garbage dumps and similar communities. In Torah the government’s plan was to transfer the inhabitants to another place for environmental reasons, as the garbage collectors activity was hazardous. But she convinced the government to leave the inhabitants undisturbed and instead transfer the activities to Kattamieh District where she built purpose-designed spaces for sorting the garbage and pig farming. 

Loza-Sawiris’s dream has no end. Not only did she establish her fertiliser plant, she also built a factory manufacturing recycling machines and three APE branches. Under Cairo Governor Abdel Reheem Shehatah, the government then helped her install  a sewage system, a telephone network, a natural gas network and a potable water station where these services had not existed before. Literacy, educational and child care services were introduced in Kattamieh too, including a nursery and a school equipped with a playground, a beautiful garden, and a kitchen offering nutritious meals. Volunteers who came along to help included Mona Wilson, Hoda El-Raheb, Nahed Saleh, Nahed Shawky, Hoda Shoukry, Wafaa Zaklama, Ne’mat and Suzy Habashy. 

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Last Thursday on 10 October the Association for the Protection of the Environment (APE) celebrated its 40th anniversary at the garden of the French Embassy in Cairo, courtesy of French Ambassador to Egypt Eric Chevallier. The event included a gala dinner in honour of Loza-Sawiris.

Present were the Egyptian Minister of Social Solidarity Maya Morsi and a wide array of dignitaries and public figures: Engineer Naguib Sawiris, former deputy Prime Minister Ziad Bahaa El-Din, CEO of Alexandria Bank Dante Campione, Director of the Sawiris Foundation Laila Hosny, former Head of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency Salah Hafez, Ambassador Laila Bahaa El-Din, Consul of Egypt in Los Angeles, California Lamya Mekhaimar, former minister of culture Emad Abu-Ghazi, Ambassador of the Vatican to Egypt Monseigneur Nicolas Thevenin, renowned philanthropist and founder of the Health & Hope Oasis of Wadi El Natroon Magda Iskander, and Star Academy Foundation and Rotary Sunrise members and financial supporters Hadya Ghabbour and Nadim Elias.

For four decades Loza-Sawiris has been exerting herself for her cause, devoting all her time to building a little utopia of educated people with income-generating skills and a life free from suffering. It is in this spirit that she has asked the founder of the EQI (Environmental Quality International) Mounir Neamatallah to inaugurate the main branch of the APE in Mokattam. Loza-Sawiris is a woman of substance in every sense, a genuine Upper Egyptian whose Arabic is with the accent of her ancestors and a graduate of the  American College for Girls in Cairo and the American University in Cairo. Above all, she is a role model: mother, sister, teacher, friend, and a remarkable lady. 

* A version of this article appears in print in the 17 October, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly