Zabbaleen
The Zabbaleen ( ', ) is a word which literally means "garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic. The contemporary use of the word in Egyptian Arabic is to mean "garbage collectors". In cultural contexts, the word refers to teenagers and adults who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors since approximately the 1940s. The Zabbaleen (singular: ', ) are also known as Zarraba (singular: Zarrab), which means "pig-pen operators." The word ' came from the Egyptian Arabic word ' (, ) which means "garbage".
Zabbaleen
The government authorities do not compensate the Zabbaleen for these changes, and as a result, the takeover of waste collection threatens the socio-economic sustainability of the Zabbaleen community. More recently, the Zabbaleen have faced another challenge when the Egyptian Agricultural Ministry ordered the culling of all pigs in April 2009, in response to national fears over the possible spread of H1N1 influenza.