Dozens of Colombian waste pickers inundated Bogota’s iconic Bolivar Square with about 15 tons of recyclable goods Tuesday to protest decreasing income and tougher conditions for scavengers. They collect trash from homes, factories and office buildings and sell it to local recycling plants.
The demonstration was organized by 14 waste picker associations in Bogota, a city where approximately 20,000 scavengers work long hours gathering items like plastic bottles, scrap metal and cardboard boxes. About 100 waste pickers gathered and some pretended to swim in between the mounds of trash.
