In world's dumps, help for warming

Impoverished trash pickers are the globe's scorned soldiers of recycling

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA -- As the world scrambles to save dwindling resources and halt global warming, a long-scorned population is becoming the latest hope in the environmental battle.

The unsung heroes are the impoverished trash pickers who fill the streets of countless cities around the developing world, searching garbage for cardboard, plastic bags and other treasure that can be sold and recycled.

Every day, they rescue hundreds of thousands of tons of material from streets and trash dumps that get reprocessed into all kinds of products. That not only cuts back on the resources used by industries but also lightens the load on dumps that are quickly reaching capacity.

Despite their contributions, trash pickers have long been harassed by local governments and derided by neighbors, who often consider them vagrants or even criminals.

Trash pickers say such attitudes are changing. Increasingly, they are being seen as foot soldiers in the global warming battle.

"We're the only ones doing this work," said Cristian Robles, a trash picker who scours the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires for recyclables. "If we didn't do it, nobody else would."

Government-run recycling programs are rare in most of the developing world. That means valuable materials that could be reused end up rotting at local dumps if trash pickers don't get to them.

At an estimated 15 million people worldwide, trash pickers make up about 1 percent of the global urban population. Their impact is enormous, said Martin Medina, a U.S.-based waste management expert who wrote "The World's Scavengers," a book about trash pickers.

Brazil, for example, claims the world's highest aluminum recycling rate, at nearly 90 percent -- not because of official initiatives, but thanks to the country's estimated 500,000 trash pickers, Medina said. By comparison, only about half the aluminum used in the United States is recycled, despite the proliferation of city-run recycling programs. In total, Brazilian trash pickers salvage about 33,000 tons of recyclables a day.

Trash pickers also reduce emissions of methane produced by rotting garbage in open-air dumps. That's no small contribution, considering that methane wreaks more than 20 times the global-warming damage that carbon dioxide does.

"Environmentally, they're having a big effect," Medina said. "But they're not getting the support of governments. The entire system is based around economics, and people only turn to this when they have no other choice. Unemployment and layoffs are what's pushing many people into doing it."

Illness, harrassment

That's the reality in a trash-strewn neighborhood of General San Martin, Argentina, a suburb of Buenos Aires, where almost all of the neighborhood's 60,000 residents earn their living through trash picking and recycling. Several said they started about seven years ago after Argentina's economy collapsed, pitching more than half the country's population into poverty.

Argentina's economy has since bounced back, but poverty still plagues more than 20 percent of Argentines. As a result, many in the neighborhood still survive by recycling trash, which earns them about $220 a month.

"It's always better to find other work, but there are no jobs, and we have to do what we know how to do," said Roberto Daniel Quiroz, 23, who's been a trash picker since age 17.

Many of the recyclers in General San Martin suffer ailments related to the unsanitary work, such as infected cuts, gastrointestinal bacteria and conjunctivitis. They're also regularly harassed by police and city officials in Buenos Aires, where many trash pickers go to find the most valuable recyclables.