The Global Scavenger

An estimated 2% of the world lives the life of a scavenger – sorting through the refuge of the other 98%, finding things that can be recycled or re-used, and then selling them back for a subsistence living.

However, they have been crushed by the insistence of

Industries that consume recyclables in developing countries encourage and support the existence of middlemen or waste dealers between the companies and the scavengers in order to assure an adequate volume and quality of the materials. As a result, opportunities arise for the exploitation and/or political control of the scavengers, since they must sell their pickings to a middleman, who in turn sells to industry. Industry demands a minimum quantity from their suppliers and will not buy from individual scavengers. Industry usually demands also that the materials be baled, crushed and classified, processing that the middlemen carry out.

And this has given rise to a predatory middle-man class (a la Wall Street for the gutters):

The poverty of most Third World scavengers can largely be accounted for by the low prices they are paid for recyclables. Studies in some Colombian, Indian and Mexican cities have found that scavengers selling recyclables to only one buyer receive as little as six percent of the price that industry pays for those materials. In Mexico City, dumpsite scavengers must sell the materials collected to their leader who then sells them to industry,, making a profit of at least 300 percent. As a result, Mexico City dumpsite scavengers usually earn incomes lower than the minimum wage, are forced to live around the dumps, and have a life expectancy of 39 years.

Emphasis mine.

[Scavenger cooperatives in developing countries. By: Medina, Martin, BioCycle, 02765055, Jun98, Vol. 39, Issue 6]

-Shlok
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