Let Me Recycle That For You. Please.

Call it "grassroots recycling" for the developing world: Every evening, thousands of people sift through the residential trash of Buenos Aires, filling sacks and carts with paper, bottles, and anything else that might be sold or reused. They do it because they have few other options for work, and the raw materials they find in the garbage allow them to scrape together a living. But these cartoneros, as they're called, might also be the key to managing the city's pressing waste management problem.

Despite passing an ambitious "zero waste" law in 2004, Buenos Aires has been slow to meet its targets for landfill diversion. Up until very recently, the city had been responsible for sending more than 90 percent of its 6,000 metric tons of waste per day to landfills. In April, the municipal government announced it had improved that number by 29 percent, though environmental groups have already criticized the city's methods. And local landfills are bursting at the seams as it is.