juan the cartonera

Our Gav is on his travels and is sending us the odd thing of interest now and then. Here's something from Argentina:

"Meet Juan, a cartonera from Buenos Aires. He works from 8pm until 2am recycling every night. There are hundreds of these guys around the city going through rubbish bags separating the plastics from the metals from paper. Juan deals mostly in white paper as the value is higher. He gets through a whopping 80kg per day.

Some cartoneras are joined by their wives and children, and through my western eyes it's sad to see whole families rummaging around in other people's rubbish. But it's a means to an end, and helps the environment as well. And on a local level, it's invaluable to a city where recycling isn't exactly compulsory."