How do you say "garbage man"?
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I'm doing an activity based on jobs and want to include the job of garbage man--a person who picks up the trash or recycling. What are they called in Spanish?
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updated Feb 27, 2011
posted by KeriG
2 Answers
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In Mexico they are called "pepenadores". That word is used exclusively in Mexico, I believe. It is derived from the Aztec language and has its base as the Aztec word that meant "to pick up" or "to collect and gather". The infinitive is "pepenar" and is used only in the meaning of picking up garbage.
The drivers of the garbage trucks are not "pepenadores", the word refers only to the men who ride on the back of the truck and throw the garbage in.
updated Feb 27, 2011
posted by mountaingirl123
I have never heard that! I'll have to do a bit of homework. - pacofinkler, Feb 27, 2011
Mmm, maybe Mountain, I call "basurero" to all the men around the truck, and "pepenador" to those men who actually don't have a truck or neither work at the back of a truck, but to those men who pick up their food and clothes or belongings from --> - Dakie, Feb 27, 2011
--> the trash on the streets, something like a beggar. - Dakie, Feb 27, 2011
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"Basurero or basureros" At least in the north of México.
updated Feb 27, 2011
edited by pacofinkler
posted by pacofinkler
In the south too. - Dakie, Feb 27, 2011
yes I thought "pepenadores" a bit odd! - pacofinkler, Feb 27, 2011
Interesante...my Jalisco friends and I were discussing this very word last month, and they were referring to the men who rode on the back of the municipal garbage trucks as "pepenadores". - mountaingirl123, Feb 27, 2011
