Wasted Land

Pin It
Waste Land, UK/Brazil, 2009
Waste Land, UK/Brazil, 2009

Located on the Northern outskirts of Rio de Janiero, just over the shoulder of the city’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, lies Gramacho Gardens. Far from the leafy suburb its name would suggest, Jardim Gramacho is in fact South America’s largest

Located on the Northern outskirts of Rio de Janiero, just over the shoulder of the city’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, lies Gramacho Gardens. Far from the leafy suburb its name would suggest, Jardim Gramacho is in fact South America’s largest rubbish dump – with about 7,000 tons of refuse arriving daily from the slums, suburbs and mansions of Rio. It is also home to 20,000 people – 1,300 of whom work in and amongst the waste day in, day out.

Known locally as “catadores” (pickers), they are the focus of Waste Land – a documentary which follows the efforts of Brazil-born, Brooklyn-based artist Vik Muniz to reach out to the workers by creating portraits of them using materials found in the dump. It sounds like a worthy effort to help people living in a hellish world, but as soon as Muniz and the crew arrive at the giant dump it becomes clear that this is too simple a premise.

Instead, they find a group of cheerful, proud and disciplined people who – despite admitting it’s not their dream lifestyle – make clear they would rather be working in the dump than dealing drugs, selling their bodies or stealing. They contribute food to an on-site kitchen, and have organised a pickers association led by the charismatic Tião Santos, which has established professional recognition for the job of catador and opened a medical clinic, daycare centre, library and skills training centre.

Then there’s the work itself. The catadores aren’t just desperately picking through the heaps looking for valuables (though they do find everything from large sums of cash to headless bodies) but instead seeking out recyclable materials on a significant scale, filling oil drums and plastic sacks with metal, glass, electronics and anything else that can be recovered and reused.

According to the press notes, this all began in the 70s and 80s, with the catadores themselves founding the recycling centre. “In 1995, Rio's sanitation department began to rehabilitate the landfill and formalise the job of the catador, granting licenses to catadores as well as enforcing basic safety standards, like the prohibition of children from the landfill. They also began a pilot project to create a carbon negative power plant fuelled by urban solid waste.”

Unfortunately, Waste Land doesn’t meaningfully explore the history of this inspirational example of how social welfare and environmental management can be combined – instead focussing on the personal angle of Muniz’s art project. While it may succeed in raising funds and awareness of the catadores in the run-up to the closure of the dump in 2012 – a worthy achievement to be sure – I can’t help but think it hasn’t really told their full story. And that’s a waste.

 

Waste Land screens at the BFI London Film Festival on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 October 2010 and in cinemas in March 2011.

Chris Hatherill is co-director of super/collider, a London-based collective which explores science and ecology through the creative industries.