rag picker
Salvages discarded textiles
A rag picker is someone who collects discarded rags, scraps, and other refuse to sell for recycling or reuse.
The term evokes 19th-century urban poverty, when people scavenged streets and dumps for salvageable cloth and paper.
Now largely historical in wealthy countries, rag pickers remain common in developing economies: Rag pickers sorted through the landfill at dawn.
- scavengerSeeker of refuse
- junkmanSeller of salvaged items
- trashDiscarded worthless material
- povertySevere lack of resources
- hard timesPeriod of difficulty
old clothes · making do · streets · city streets · cart · salvage · tattered · scraps · beggar · collector · waste · dustman · bundle · alley · cloth · sack · wanderer · street vendor
- Victorian Jobschimney sweep, milliner, housemaid, blacksmith, cobbler
- Victorian povertyworkhouse, poorhouse, tenement, slum, hovel
- scavengersvulture, vultures, scavenger, hyena, hyenas
- peddlerspeddler, hawker, vendor, street vendor, pushcart
- recyclerscomposters, can crusher, scrap dealer, scrap yards, recycling centers
- sanitation jobssanitation worker, garbage collector, refuse collector, trash collector, waste collector
rag pickeraristocrat
Person of noble birth
millionaire · tycoon · magnate · plutocrat · socialite
rag pickercouturier
Custom clothing designer
fashion designer · tailor · dressmaker · clothier · manufacturer
rag, picker, rags, ragged, raggedly, raggedness, raggy, pick, picks