SoylentNews

takyon writes:

In San Francisco, Making a Living From Your Billionaire Neighbor's Trash

Three blocks from Mark Zuckerberg's $10 million Tudor home in San Francisco, Jake Orta lives in a small, single-window studio apartment filled with trash.

There's a child's pink bicycle helmet that Mr. Orta dug out from the garbage bin across the street from Mr. Zuckerberg's house. And a vacuum cleaner, a hair dryer, a coffee machine — all in working condition — and a pile of clothes that he carried home in a Whole Foods paper bag retrieved from Mr. Zuckerberg's bin.

A military veteran who fell into homelessness and now lives in government subsidized housing, Mr. Orta is a full-time trash picker, part of an underground economy in San Francisco of people who work the sidewalks in front of multimillion-dollar homes, rummaging for things they can sell.

One Zuck's trash is another man's "like new".

Original Submission