As I walked out of the co-working space, Colab (now thecube.gr), I couldn’t ignore the man sitting next to the recycling bin. I was struck by the scene and thought to myself, “This is capitalism.” It uses everything and, after it thrashes it out, will use it again only if it is more expensive than creating from scratch.

This moment compelled me to raise my lens and capture the stark reality before me. The recycling bin, clearly marked for sorting paper, glass, aluminium, plastic, and tin, stands in stark contrast to the man beside it. We began recycling waste when we realized it was more expensive to create new materials than to reuse the old ones. Yet, a human being, no longer considered valuable, is left to survive on the streets.

This photograph is a powerful statement about our society. It reveals a troubling reality: we find worth in recycling waste because it saves costs, and the same logic applies to human beings. People lose their jobs and only get another chance if their experience is more valuable than training a new employee and paying them less.

Everyone says that capitalism works where socialism failed, but what is the success of capitalism? When we treat people like disposable commodities, only valuable if they cost less to reuse than to replace, we must question: Is this the success we imagined as the human race?