Montréal's Dignity Bag: A design tool to protect and legitimize urban recyclers

The Dignity Bag arrives with the very practical mission of giving safety and a sense of legitimacy to the city's binners, the workers who collect cans and bottles that would otherwise end up in landfill.

In Canada, they're called binners or valoristes. In Brazil, catadores. And in Mexico, pepenadores. Whatever the name, almost every major city relies on this invisible workforce.

Created with Montréal's binner community and Coop Les Valoristes, the Dignity Bag offers safety, visibility and long-overdue dignity to the workers who keep cities' recycling systems afloat.