Buenos Aires, Argentina – The streets of Buenos Aires belong to people like Gabriel Martinez these days, as he searches high and low for scrap pieces of cardboard to turn into cash in the dog days of the pandemic.
His nine-year-old son, Benjamin, dangles his legs over the edge of the cart, as his father returns empty-handed from a pit stop at a gas station.
Martinez has been collecting cardboard for a living since he was 19, and now he is 34.
He lives in the suburbs of the capital city, but he will sleep with his son, in a room they rent in the Buenos Aires depot where he sells his trove of scavenged goods, so that they can start early and repeat tomorrow.