In Colombia, a garbage collector with a passion for reading saved 20 books (photos and video)

His name is José Alberto Gutiérrez, and since 1997 he's been collecting all the books he finds in the trash during his work shifts. With the collected books, he's created a veritable library that the residents of his neighborhood, especially children, can access for free.

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A STREET CLEANER WHO SAVES BOOKS

SAVE THE BOOKS

It all started on my first night on the job, when I was working a shift in the Bolivia barrio, a wealthy neighborhood in the northern part of Bogota, in Colombia, he came across a book Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The masterpiece was located among the waste ma José Alberto Gutiérrez, street cleaner by profession, she didn't have the heart to leave him to his sad fate, so she decided to take him home. Twenty years have passed since that first discovery. and what seemed to be a casual gesture, driven by instinct,over time it has become a real mission.

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A STREET CLEANER WHO SAVES BOOKS

Mr. Gutiérrez still drives the garbage truck today, and in the meantimeHe saved around 20 volumes, many of which are now crammed into his small house in San Cristóbal, in the southern part of Bogotá. A house which, as Adam Boult reports in The Telegraph, has become a sanctuary of the booksMr. Gutiérrez's house has, in fact, been transformed into a library—one that is truly on par with official ones—not only for him but also for the neighborhood community. A service that this special street cleaner wanted. dedicate especially to the little ones, who can find hospitality at his home on weekends for read or to borrow books. All strictly free of charge.

DON'T THROW AWAY YOUR BOOKS

So what might seem like a simple hobby is, for Mr. Gutiérrez, a mission. In his long years of street activism as a garbage collector, he discovered that, unfortunately, in the city's wealthy neighborhoods, throwing away books is a widespread bad habit. And there's no particular predisposition; novels, essays, fairy tales, and detective stories end up in the trash. That's why Mr. Gutiérrez's library is varied and can provide its users with a library of any genre. Today, this book-loving garbage collector is nicknamed "the Lord of the Books" and explains that his predisposition for reading "It's the best gift my parents could have given me." because "they were my salvation."

Photo credit: Guillermo Legaria/AFP/Getty Images, published on “The Telegraph”

THE WEALTH OF BOOKS 

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