Collecting recyclabe material

Perhaps the most marginalized people in Phnom Penh are the people who walk the streets pulling carts to collect recyclable materials. In Khmer, they "roat echay". They call out "echay" to let homeowners behind their walls know that they are passing. Homeowners typically sell their cans, bottles and paper to them and the "echay" people then resell them to middle men who collect trucks full of these materials. Often the "echay" people are mothers who must bring their children along with them in the hot sun. The child in this rickety cart is three years old but she was so thin and underdeveloped, she looked much younger.