— By Andru Shively — 

In our forever-online, screen-curated world, social media has the power to move mountains, and not just metaphorical ones – mountains of waste, too, as netizens in Colombia can attest. Lacking in the South American country’s capital Bogotá is a formal, state-regulated recycling system. Instead, an army of 26,000 informal waste collectors try to come to grips with the unsorted sea of rubbish – difficult work, and for little pay.

Recently, they have received wide-ranging support from an influencer, Sara Samaniego, whose online persona Marce la Recicladora highlights their work and demonstrates to hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram how to properly sort and clean their rubbish. Increasingly popular, her videos are even being used by teachers to better engage students with the topic of recycling, apparently with positive results. So, you know what to do: like, follow, subscribe... sort and recycle!