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
Spread out among seven different settlements scattered in the Greater Cairo Urban Region, the Zabbaleen population is between 50,000 and 70,000. The largest settlement is Mokattam village, nicknamed "Garbage City," located at the foot of the Mokattam Mountains, next to Manshiyat Naser. The Zabbaleen community in Mokattam Village has a population of around 20,000 to 30,000, over 90 percent of which are Coptic Christians.