What does Acamjg stand for?
With the help of Tião dos Santos, featured in the doc and the president of the pickers’ cooperative ACAMJG (the Association of Recycling Pickers of Jardim Gramacho), the city will payout the more than 1,700 pickers in a lump sum of about $7,500 each now that the landfill is closed.
What is Jardim Gramacho Brazil?
The landfill, known as Jardim Gramacho or Gramacho Gardens, is piled almost 300 feet high across 14 million square feet – the equivalent of 244 American football fields. It is the largest landfill in Brazil and all of South America.
What is a Catadore?
Catadores are waste collectors who pick through trash to source recyclable materials. There are an estimated one million catadores across the country. The ASMARE organization is transforming recyclable materials into works of art.
Where was wasteland filmed?
Rio de Janeiro
Filmed over nearly three years, Waste Land follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home base in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
What is the landfill in waste land known for?
Established in 1970 as a sanitary waste facility, the landfill became home to an anarchic community of scavengers during the economic crises of the 70’s and 80’s. These catadores lived and worked in the garbage, collecting and selling scrap metal and recyclable materials.
What is a picker What do they do at Jardim Gramacho and why are they important?
On the edge of Rio de Janeiro is Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest garbage dump. “Catadores” or pickers are people hired by the ACAMJG (Association of Collectors of the Metropolitan Landfill of Jardim Gramacho) to organise the garbage there into recycles so the materials can be sold.
Is Jardim Gramacho still open?
Jardim Gramacho was the site of one of the largest landfills in the world. It closed in June 2012 after 34 years of operation.
What is the benefits of Catadores?
The catadores make money by helping the city to recycle waste instead of sending it to a landfill. The ecological impact of this work is crucial: by some estimates up to 90% of all recycling that occurs in Brazil comes from the work of catadores.
Who is garbage picker?
A waste picker is a person who salvages reusable or recyclable materials thrown away by others to sell or for personal consumption. There are millions of waste pickers worldwide, predominantly in developing countries, but increasingly in post-industrial countries as well.
What is the purpose of wasteland the documentary?
An uplifting feature documentary highlighting the transformative power of art and the beauty of the human spirit. Top-selling contemporary artist Vik Muniz takes us on an emotional journey from Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest landfill on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, to the heights of international art stardom.
What is the film Waste Land about?
Located just outside Rio de Janeiro, Jardim Gramacho, Brazil, is the world’s largest garbage landfill. Modern artist Vik Muniz works with the so-called catadores, the men and women who pick through the refuse, to create art out of recycled materials. Muniz selects six of the garbage pickers to pose as subjects in a series of photographs mimicking famous paintings. In his desire to assist the catadores and change their lives, Muniz finds himself changed as well.
Waste Land/Film synopsis