To all waste pickers, thank you for your service
She is a familiar figure in our street. Weather beaten and stocky, she could be mistaken for a man at first sight. Her name is Bilot, short for Violeta. Once every week, undeterred by the heat of the sun or the rain, she flits from one garbage bin to the next as a bumblebee from flower to flower. Poking at the garbage with her stick, she is looking for and sorting out scraps of waste that she can sell to junk shops. Rummaging through dustbins is her way to survive. As the saying goes, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.