Mass media have shown the potential to influence the way the public in general perceives its contents. Moreover, mass media can be a powerful tool that mediates (if not creates) the public understanding of certain terminologies that are addressed to citizens that work with recycling materials—the so-called dumpster divers and waste pickers. Ultimately, these terminologies are shaped by the way they are (re)presented to the public by media in general. Although studies have focused on the use of mass media for the popularization of environmental education, up to date, research has ignored the resources provided by print media for the sense-making of readers regarding those terminologies. How headlines, photographs, and space allocation in newspapers, environmental flyers, and magazines contribute to construct an incorrect image of those informal laborers? Therefore, the present study draws on public reading materials available collected by the Community-based Research Laboratory from the University of Victoria to understand how the content of the media reports and their structural organization in which they are embedded work together to contribute to the stigmatization of citizens that work with recycling resources. The approach we propose is of particular interest to environmental educators, practitioners and the community in general, because our findings help to develop a critical thinking about what is reported to us through mass media.