Argentina’s informal recycling network, once a lifeline for thousands, is unraveling as falling prices and new policies make waste-picking unsustainable.
Some subsistence farmers are down to one meal a day amid a one-two punch: a lack of rainfall, followed by the disappearance of regular food supplements due to shuttered US aid programs.
Residents spend as much as 20% of their income on water, yet what comes from their taps is green, dirty and undrinkable. Now, privatization looms, threatening even higher costs.