| | Who'd be a dustman in Cairo? Revolting pictures of piled-up rubbish give Egyptian capital label of Garbage City
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 6:22 PM on 27th July 2011
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With mountains of rubbish towering over children and endless bin bags bulging from high-rise flats, these are the shocking images that show Cairo's 'Garbage City' - where thousands of Egyptians live amongst piles of stinking rubbish.
Manshiyat naser, or Garbage city, as it is known by locals, is a slum on the outskirts of Cairo, just a short drive away from luxury five star resorts.
But these shocking photos show a whole community which has been living in the slums for hundreds of years surrounded by rats and rotting rubbish.
 Piled high: Rubbish dominates the streets in Manshiyat naser, or Garbage City
 Overworked: The driver of a vehicle which appears to be collecting rubbish clearly has his work cut out against the mass of waste
 Trash town: Children play in Manshiyat naser, or 'Garbage City', while surrounded by the enormous sacks of rubbish
Photographer Ilya Stepanov took the pictures to document the lives of the Zabbaleens - a people who have been living among rubbish, and making a living out of recycling it, for generations.
One image shows huge piles of bagged rubbish stacked high in the streets, with most of the piles twice the size of the helpless children stood nearby.
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Another shocking image shows dozens of bulging bags teetering over the walls of high-rise apartment buildings, apparently blocking out light and access.
Ilya, from Cheboksary, Russia, said: 'The place stinks and there are myriads of flies.
'It is so hot, everything is rotting, and there is rubbish piled several floors high on every street.
 Making do: The locals in 'Garbage City' are said to make a good living out of being surrounded by filth by recycling the huge amounts of rubbish
'But the people there are happy. They have never known anything different than living among the rubbish. 'It's definitely not a place I'd like to stay for a long time - it was difficult to stay a couple of days to take the photographs.
'It often has no running water, sewage or electricity.
'But the people there are so friendly and welcoming - they don't see anything unusual about it.
'The Zabbaleens are Christians, and in Cairo, Muslims don't have much dealing with rubbish, which is why niche was taken by Zabbaleens. 'Besides many hundreds years ago they were not allowed to do anything else, only the most dirty jobs.
 Mountains of waste are stacked up around walls of an apartment block in Cairo's Garbage City
'But they make a good living out of recycling rubbish. About half of all the rubbish in Cairo ends up in Garbage City.
'About 85 per cent of it is sorted and recycled by the people there, and then sold on.
'Rubbish is taken to this quarter by big lorries. Then it is taken to houses and yards by smaller cars, on horses or donkeys or in hands, where it is sorted.
'They sort it into piles of used paper, metal, plastic and so on - and make quite a bit of money from it.'
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