Unsanitary garbage
Donkey heads and hooves recently discovered in public containers have raised questions about safe hazardous material disposal in Cairo. Dena Rashed investigates
The residents of Al-Bahr Al-A'zam Street were surprised last week to find the remnants of dead donkeys in their street garbage containers. The news travelled all over the city, prompting iftar table speculation that butchers were selling donkey meat. Although it might sound improbable, it's not without precedent; earlier this year, donkey meat was sold as fresh beef in Alexandria. With all these animal parts lurking in local receptacles civic organisations and authorities are starting to question contamination in Cairo.
Police investigation of the "donkey head incident" found that four guards from the Giza Zoo simply threw the remains of donkeys slaughtered to feed the lions into public containers. "They were supposed to throw them into the special containers provided by the Spanish Company FCC in charge of cleaning the northern district of Giza, but they didn't and that is what caused all this fuss," said a senior source from the Giza Cleanliness and Beautification Authority (GCBA) who preferred anonymity. The source told Al-Ahram Weekly that FCC was not to blame for this latest incident. "If the guards disposed of the remnants improperly it is simply not the company's fault. They haven't been late in the collection as was rumoured," he said.
The investigations indicated that the carcasses were intended to eventually end up in the Shabramant waste landfill, raising even more serious questions regarding the safe disposal of such waste. As the GCBA source pointed out, "There is only one way of disposing of the dead bodies of the animals ... they have to be destroyed." He acknowledged that this procedure is not as simple as it sounds, since it always requires written permission from the prosecution office.
"The truth is that there is no proper system for disposal of animal remnants. Before we ask people to be aware of the size of the problem, the government has to organise and manage a viable system of collection and disposal," said Tarek Genina, the president of EcoConserve.
Genina added that awareness of the public health risk from improper disposal of such wastes has only arisen due to the zoo guards' incidental use of a public container on a crowded street. "Normally, however, they would just throw dead animals into the Nile," he explained. In fact, police investigations found that a worker at the National Circus disposed of dead donkeys in a water canal.
As Genina pointed out, "What happened is a true catastrophe because there is no way that it is acceptable that house wastes should be disposed of with such hazardous wastes."
Deflecting the blame away from zoo personnel like the guards, who he said were unaware of the practice, Genina wants to put the government on the hot seat for not attending to proper waste disposal.
A bone of contention is the fact that while garbage collection is being privatised for efficiency, current contracts do not cover some issues that can spawn public health problems. "If the contracts of the new wastes management companies do not cover this [garbage separation] service, then there is always a possibility of either amending the contracts or providing sub- contracted services by other small companies," Genina said.
According to the current contracts, private companies are supposed to use landfills -- still being prepared -- to ensure the safe disposal of all the wastes.
Construction of the sanitary landfill on the outskirts of Giza for the other company in charge of cleaning north Giza, Italian- based International Environment Services Co (IES), has not yet started. "Until the Giza Governorate resolves the dispute with the Antiquities Authority on the land they were supposed to give us we cannot start our job in preparing the landfill," said Khaled El-Alami, the managing director of IES. At the same time, companies are warning that certain conditions might result in the suspension of current services. "We have not received our fees for the service we are providing for the governorate, so we might halt all our work by next week if we don't take the money our contract stipulates," he added.
In the meantime, reconsider your weekend plans to go "dumpster diving" unless you have a pressing need for animal carcasses and other hazardous wastes.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 13 - 19 November 2003 (Issue No. 664)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/664/fe1.htm