Thursday, October 25, 2007

cartoneros

cartoneros: urban salvagers

I recently saw a great documentary called Cartoneros, a short version of which is below. They used scavenger for cartonero, but I think salvager has much more dignity to it. Just saw Bryan on subtopia use the term urban salvager, and like that specificity. In Vancouver the term is binner, but that seems very Vancouver specific - other English speakers don't seem to get it. There's actually also a movie about the Vancity binners, called Traplines in Vancouver, made by a French Geographer. The Vancouver binners association has one of my favorite organization names: United We Can. The other term is dumpster diver - which some folks use with great pride, but I don't think is as widely well regarded as salvager.

(ojo que en espaƱol Colombiano es reciclador, y, como dice Raul en los comentarios, en Mexicano pepenador, que viene del nahuatl)