While most of us simply disregard trash, some have found ingenious ways to use items we discard. In New York City, former sanitation worker Nelson Molina, for example, amassed a collection worth about $160,000 just from digging through the trash. And though he spent three decades putting it together, the “Treasures in the Trash Museum” doesn’t belong to him. In Colombia, a man’s spent about two decades rooting through the trash for his community.

José Alberto Gutiérrez is a sanitation worker in the South American country. From about 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., Gutiérrez collects trash in Bogota's wealthier neighborhoods. When he came across Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in the trash, it sparked something in him. He began collecting the books others had thrown away.

Eventually, he ended up with a collection large enough that he started a library - La Fuerza de las Palabras - in his home 15 years ago. Unlike other home libraries, this one is open to the public, and specifically serves the children in this neighborhood who don't always have access to books.

Original Source - Remezcla