Cartonero

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person in Latin America who collects discarded waste, such as cardboard, to reuse or resell.

    "Tens of thousands of the unemployed scavenged the streets collecting cardboard, an enduring image that gave rise to the term “cartoneros.”"

Example

More examples

"Tens of thousands of the unemployed scavenged the streets collecting cardboard, an enduring image that gave rise to the term “cartoneros.”"

Etymology

From Spanish cartonero.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.