Since 2008, a ragpickers' cooperative numbering 85 members recover anything reusable from Palermo's garbage. Like their father and grandfathers before them, the ragpickers work at the city's central dump, wielding a sickle and wearing a plastic pail tied to their belt, scavenging for old iron, paper, glass and plastic for resale to earn their livelihood. Following years of battling Amia, the municipalized sanitation company, they finally managed to obtain a contract. The company is now on the brink of bankruptcy, however, threatening the survival of the cooperative and its members.<%YOUTUBE=nzFpCcHCJVo%>
