The ragpicking trade was complex, with its own set of regulations and specific vocabulary for the various roles, such as  'scraper', 'muddler', 'picker' and 'placer'.. With their wicker baskets slung over their backs, lanterns and hooks at the ready, these men and women were omnipresent before the introduction of sorting bins by Prefect Poubelle and advances in the paper industry marginalised their profession. In this urban landscape, Édouard Manet and Charles Baudelaire were to art and literature what ragpickers were to the gutter: recyclers of rubbish.