Taking the trash out
Despite a court ruling confirming the legality of garbage collection fees being linked to electricity bills, consumers remain unsatisfied with the arrangement. Dena Rashed reports
The Alexandria court case filed by angry consumers against the system linking garbage collection fees to electricity bills has ended with a victory for the Alexandria governorate. The court decided that the system was "a fair and organised method, whereby the law has managed to take people's socio- economic levels into consideration".
The system calculates garbage collection fees based on electricity consumption. The more people consume electricity the more they pay for their garbage to be removed. Businesses, meanwhile, are charged based on both the nature of their business, as well as their consumption of electricity.
The issue has its roots in the granting of garbage collection contracts to foreign waste management companies, a process that began in Alexandria two years ago. Cairo has recently begun implementing a similar scheme, which has also inspired much consumer wrath.
In Ain Shams, a Cairo district where the new system has only just begun to be used, people's primary complaint involves the collection fee.
Grocery store owner Mansour Abdel- Tawab, for one, has no problem with the idea of foreign companies cleaning up the city. The amount he's expected to pay for it, however, is the problem. "I used to pay the zabal (the traditional garbage collector) LE5 per month to take away a small container of trash on a daily basis," he said. This month, the new system billed him LE20. Like many others Cairenes, Abdel-Tawab does not quite understand the link between garbage collection fees and his electricity bill.
The idea seems to have its basis in a belief that the most reliable way of forcing people to pay for their garbage collection would be to link it to their electricity bill; if the bill wasn't paid, the electricity would be cut off. Electricity company officials, however, have made it clear that they do not intend to cut off people's electricity for not paying the additional fees.
According to Abdel-Tawab, "we now know that, as citizens, our contract with the Ministry of Electricity stipulates that we only pay the bill for the service that the ministry provides us, which is electricity and not garbage collection."
Cairo Deputy Governor Abdel-Hadi Gad El-Moula, meanwhile, told Al- Ahram Weekly, that even though the electricity would not be cut off if the garbage was not paid, violators would be forced to pay an additional penalty that has been termed the "environmental fee". No further details, however, were available about how much the fee was, or how it would be collected.
El-Moula said "the governorate had only received eight complaints since the system began being implemented in Cairo's eastern districts three months ago," and that all the complaints were from shop owners rather than households.
Another Ain Shams grocery store owner, Ali Ahmed, said he "used to pay the zabal LE5, the municipality LE17, and LE5 in tips." This month, with the new system in place, he complained about being charged LE250. Although Ahmed thinks the new garbage collection system is good, he also said that at the same time, he couldn't afford to pay this amount of money, and would be submitting a complaint to the Electricity Ministry. In the meantime, he would not be paying.
Marzouk Murad, who works at a nearby bakery, agreed that the system seemed unfair, considering the fact that the bakery got a LE15 bill because they use less electricity than the grocer -- even though they produce more waste.
Another Ain Shams resident who spoke to the Weekly had a problem with the concept as a whole. Preferring to remain anonymous, he claimed that cleanliness was "only for those who could afford it. You can not ask people to pay for a service like this when they do not have money," he said.
Ahmed, the grocery store owner, disagreed. "Even the poor are entitled to a clean environment," he said.
Another common gripe regarding the new system involves the fact that garbage collection is no longer door-to- door, even though the contract signed by the foreign waste management companies allegedly stipulates that it should be. Instead, people have been forced to personally deliver their garbage to the special containers that have been placed on the streets.
Ain Shams resident Ihsan Abdel-Malak, a housewife in her 60s, said she was "too old to carry the garbage downstairs". In the old days, she would pay the zabal LE2.50 a month to take the garbage from her doorstep. Now, in addition to the monthly fee added onto her electricity bill, she pays anyone she can find 50 piastres per time to take the trash down to the street.
Dalal Bakr, who lives in the upper middle class district of Heliopolis, also has a problem with the new system of paying both the zabal and the foreign companies. "I pay the zabal to carry the garbage down to the container, because I can't send the maid down to do that, and at the same time I have to pay the other garbage bill by law."
The system has also had to deal with the disappearance of the garbage containers themselves. 23 containers have been stolen thus far. According to officials, some of these stolen containers have been used to store soft drinks, while others are being used to manufacture pickles. According to El-Moula, the governorate has little control over that particular issue, although efforts have been made to bring containers that have been moved (rather than stolen) back to the locations they were moved away from.
In Al-Matariya, meanwhile, residents are still anxiously waiting for their first electricity bill with the garbage collection fee added onto it. "I really like the service so far," said Mohamed Fouad, who runs a small shop in the area, "but I don't know how much I will have to pay for it."
