Waste Pickers, the people who collect and recycle materials from the rubbish dumps of third world cities could number as many as ten million people across the world. In many places the pickers have organised themselves into trade unions or co-operatives to campaign for their rights, protect their members and promote their educational and economic development.
Waste Land is also a film about which The Los Angeles Times wrote:
That a beautiful film could be set in the world's largest garbage dump sounds like an oxymoron, but acclaimed documentarian Lucy Walker has pulled off precisely that feat in her profoundly moving "Waste Land." She follows renowned Brooklyn-based, Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz on a singularly ambitious project: going to Jardim Gramacho, a vast landfill established in 1970 north of Rio de Janeiro, photographing its catadores, pickers of recyclable materials, and then collaborating with them in transforming these photos into portraits created with recyclable materials. His purpose is to inspire his pickers to see themselves in a new way and even to re-imagine their lives
See the movie site for more information
