Why this word is great
RAGPICKER — [Noun] A person who collects and sells discarded items, especially rags and other refuse, for a living. From rag ("a scrap of cloth") + picker ("one who picks or gathers"). Unlike scavenger, a general, almost zoological term for one who collects refuse, or junk dealer, who operates from a fixed location trading in larger wares, the ragpicker is defined by a specific, historical intimacy with urban detritus. It is the slow, deliberate stoop over a gutter's gleam of broken glass, the tactile knowledge of sorting damp wool from linen by touch alone, and the patient accumulation of a sack of fragments that might, together, be worth a coin. His work is a silent archaeology of the almost-gone, a curator of the gutter proving that everything, even dissolution, has a market.