Los Pepenadores de Oaxaca Working in the City Dump Young, restless children and bent old couples pull apart and sift and sort, collecting metals and glass, cleaning plastics for bundling, hunting for toys and treasures, judging the edibility of food and delighting in a box of discarded lollipops. A burning sun, smoke from smoldering and flamming garbage, dust kicked up by wind and trucks, the smell of rotting vegetables. Literally scratching out food and a living from the refuse of the city, some sixty people every day face a brutal workplace full of disease.