EVERY night Gabriel Cazuza drags his two-wheeled, metal-framed carroça through the streets of São Paulo collecting aluminium, paper, cardboard and other recyclables for sale to scrap merchants. He is one of tens of thousands of catadores in Brazil’s biggest city, plying a trade that has employed poor Brazilians since the 19th century.

EVERY night Gabriel Cazuza drags his two-wheeled, metal-framed carroça through the streets of São Paulo collecting aluminium, paper, cardboard and other recyclables for sale to scrap merchants. He is one of tens of thousands of catadores in Brazil’s biggest city, plying a trade that has employed poor Brazilians since the 19th century.