Libros de Cartoneros

Recycling of reusable materials in this country is done primarily by homeless people. Every night, you see them in the streets, collecting and sorting the massive piles of trash into bottles, cardboard, paper, etc. which they then sell back to the government for a few centavos each. The people who sort through the tremendous amounts of cardboard (cartón) are called cartoneros. After the 2001 economic crisis here (caused by the government lying and essentially making up that an Argentine peso was equal to a US dollar), there was a huge increase in cartoneros. They just barely make enough to eat.

This lady in the blue and yellow was a cartonera until 2 years ago. She now works for this incredible organization that makes books out of the cartón and pays the cartoneros almost double what the government pays them for the same amount of cardboard.



I went to their store with my derechos humanos (human rights) class and I was blown away by what they do.

Located in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Boca, the majority of the books they make are sold for a few pesos (at most 2 US dollars) to children to read and use for school. They hand paint all the covers, using these stencils and neon colored paints.






This is me with the 2 books I bought. They are 2 really famous Argentine books. It's cool because the operation helps out so many people, and the book is exactly word for word as though I had bought it in a bookstore.