Environmental-awareness may not be considered an Egyptian strong-point. But as Yasmine El-Rashidi discovers, the country's recycling scheme comes in its own national style "Domty boxes are the best," says Reham Saad, an English teacher and mother of two, speaking of the Egyptian environmentally- friendly tendency to re-use otherwise discardable objects. "They're steadier than some of the other kinds, their lids fit on tight, and they're a good shape [square]." The perfect storage space for little odds and ends in bedrooms or sewing kits, or bits and pieces that litter kitchen cupbords. It is probably simply a matter of personal flip-sided opinion, but Egypt -- to make a statement -- is an environmentally friendly nation. Like all else in this city called 'unique', recycling occurs in its own Egypt- friendly form. Elsewhere in the world there are garbage cans for glass (of different colours, too), others for paper, and even more for tins and other items. "Things" are recycled, re-used, taken and altered in form to be used again. The so-called "West" is quite proud of its high-tech recycling plants and techniques -- yet a country like Egypt puts the high- power to shame. To start with, we boast the nationally- known "zabaleen" (garbage collectors) community, where tins and things are recycled to make kitchen-friendly stainless steel-like products, and paper is recycled into dainty pastel-coloured packages of envelopes, paper, and fancy-looking notebooks and albums. A modified form of Western re-use. The debate comes into the fact that the community lives, literally, in garbage -- a minor detail in the environment-friendly global move known as "recycle". That aside, we do so much more than the traditional paper, glass and tin thing. Egyptians have actually managed, quite accidentally perhaps, to break the decomposition barrier, and to recycle -- in modified form -- the one thing the world has failed with: plastic, or plastic bags, to be precise. It is true that supermarkets have not yet caught on to the trend of supplying shoppers with the classic recycled brown paper bags, but we have certainly found re-use for our local alternative. Re-use is a technique that crosses all social strata of society, and straddles a large portion of most age groups -- though it is safe to speculate that it may in fact be lost to the hipper, more 'westernised', younger generation. Artist Mohamed Abla, shown here at work, after sifting through piles and piles of garbage, re-used what homes no longer found any use for to create some of his most unique artworks (photos Randa Shaath) "It's something I used to see my own mother do," says Esmat El-Esawi, a 'grandmother', so-to-speak. "You opened any cupboard in the house and you would find everything wrapped in a plastic bag," she laughs. And more often than not, she continues, that plastic bag was wrapped in yet another. Sometimes, even a third. "We're sort of the same way with newspapers," El- Esawi adds. "If you open the cupboard under the sink, "you'll find a pile of newspapers." I know what she means -- the same phenomenon is present at my house too. And that of several friends, I sneakily observe. "Sometimes we use the papers to line cupboards, or sometimes to clean glass, or to put French fries on to drain the oil, or to wrap things. Newspapers have many uses." So do containers. Empty ice-cream tubs, tomato paste jars, jam jars, plastic water bottles and white cheese boxes. Jars, it is well-known, are used to store spices; definitely a common occurrence in kitchen cupboards nation-wide. "We're good at re-using things," says Karim Ali, a 19-year-old student hanging-out at the Gezira Club one Friday morning. "You should see what my mother does, or my grandmother -- she's the worst!" He means the plastic bag and newspaper thing. "They just never want to throw anything away." But Egyptians do way better than that. Outside the Egyptian borders, and especially in those very conutries that pride themselves as environmentally-aware and environmentally-friendly, anything used, worn or torn is instantaneously thrown away. A tormenting experience for any Egypt-bred soul who immigrates to the West. The advanced, First World, developed, high-tech nations would be taken aback by the ingenious works of some hole-in-the-wall stores. The raffa (magic sewer), for example, is a genius of a trade in its own right. These needle miracle- workers -- most of whom occupy tiny, two- by-three metre stores, somehow manage to vanish away tears and holes in clothes -- resurrecting even the most lost causes of clothes to another life. Then come the shoe menders and leather menders, brass and steel menders, and the endless mechanic workshops than can breathe back the tick into the most static of gadgets. It is a way of life that takes a bit of getting used to -- and certainly a dose of cultural infusion to get in tune with -- but once one gets in the flow of things, one realises that in Egypt, no repair, re-use, or re-cycle -- in some unique way shape or form, is impossible.
