Waste Land is a art documentary with an environmental twist. It follows Brazilian artist Vik Muniz as he works with the Association of Collectors of the Metropolitan Landfill of Jardim Gramacho, a group of people who salvage recyclable materials from the Jardim Gramacho landfill in Janeiro Brazil, the largest landfill in the world. Vik Muniz is a photographer, who makes his work out of found materials. This movie focuses on his series made out of recyclable materials salvaged from the Jardim Gramacho landfill, and the people who work there and recreated their portraits out of the materials they collect all day. The thing that struck me the most about this film is how human everyone is, the garbage pickers, or catadores in Portuguese, are so human it hurts. They are funny, they are raw and real, they have the most important things to say about consumption and waste. One man, Valter dos Santos, while talking about how some people don’t think that recycling makes a difference said “One single can is of great importance. Because 99 is not 100, and that single one will make the difference.” A woman named Magna de Franca Santos said “It’s easy for you to be sitting there at home in front of your television consuming whatever you want and tossing everything in the trash and leaving it out on the street for the garbage trucks to take it away. But where does that garbage go?” She then gave the camera a now-you-think-about-that-for-a-while half smile and nod. These people work for $20-$25 a day, sorting recyclables on literal mountains of garbage. It is breathtaking seeing a whole island of trash, and the humans in scale with it, it is astounding. 
This film really speaks of the human’s ability to waste an insane amount of matter, and our talent for casting things undesirable to the side. Muniz put it as “this is where everything that is not good goes, including the people.” Throughout the course of the film, with the people Muniz gets to help make the pieces of art, and to pose for them, you really fall in love with them. Their spirit, their personalities. These are human beings and it broke my heart to learn how some have to live. One woman, Suelem Pereira Dias, has worked in the dump since she was 7 (she was 18 at the time of filming), she is such a beautiful young lady, posed with her two children, immortalized in trash. She said that “If I don’t die, it’s not bad.” One day she found a dead child amongst the trash, “There was a baby there that had been thrown away.” We are a throw away species, it seems like it's all we know how to do.
Although the movie was about this artist working with catadores to create deep, socially charged works of art, for the purposes of this class I think the most important thing to take away from this movie was the sheer amount that is being thrown out, that could have been recycled. The catadores collect 200 tons of recyclable materials a day. That is absolutely insane. 
Wow that's a lot of stuff we just waste. When i throw things away i don't really think about where it goes. It's strange to think these people make their living off of things everyone else just threw away. It is sustainability month at western and i thought it was odd that we would highlight this for a single month of the year. Shouldn't every month be sustainability month?
ReplyDeleteWow, it is hard to imagine collecting 200 tons of recyclable material everyday. I never really think about the effect not recycling can have on global warming, but most of those materials are probably plastics that are made of oil.
ReplyDeleteWe produce so much waste without even thinking about it. Everything comes with wrapping now in order to "ensure freshness" and recycling this stuff is "too much work". I cannot imagine the scale of the trash mound that the individuals must sort through because we were too lazy to do it ourselves. The camp I work at recycles and composts everything. We do "lunch junk" where we have the kids sort their lunches after they are done into recyclables, compost, and landfill. Im not sure how much of a difference it has after camp is done but during camp they get in to it and try to bring less and less waste and more things that can be reused and recycled.
ReplyDeleteThe amount that is collected and therefore thrown out is absurd. With that being said, I'm almost not surprised. I went home this weekend and as I drove down my street this morning, I saw that every driveway was full of garbage waiting to be picked up. The amount of food that was wasted last night for the Super Bowl is extremely high. Even if we all just made half the food that we did last night, I believe we could have had a successful day as far as saving the planet.
ReplyDeleteIf you've ever watched "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," there's an episode where they have a trash removal strike and the crew devises a plan to profit off of people still needing their trash removed (it fails miserably). Anyway, they depict people being willing to spend a lot of money to get the trash out of their driveways because they can't stand the smell. This depiction is probably more accurate than not. We consume and we dispose, and we don't think twice about where that trash is going and what it's doing to our environment (look how much trash is in the ocean). And until we have to actually deal with our trash lingering around in our personal space, like in the episode of "It's Always Sunny," we may never understand just how much we waste.
ReplyDeleteI adore Sunny, not only is it hilarious but it's always got something to say about social issues under the guise of ridiculous schemes and pranks. The world needs a gang to solve our trash crisis.
DeleteIt always baffles me how much we tend to just throw away without a second thought, Americans in particular. Our trash contains a lot of valuable electronics that just get dumped into certain African countries with little warning. My mom works at my old high school cafeteria, and she tries to take how food every so often because the people in charge of lunch are left with so many leftovers and don't know what to do with it. I would certainly be taking all I could get, especially if its free of charge.
ReplyDeleteI feel that most people never realize how much they waste until they visually see the results. I really want to watch this documentary, due to how you described it. It sounds like it has great impactful information as well as being interesting and eye-opening to how wasteful humans truly are.
ReplyDeleteIt's on Netflix instant watch!
DeleteHis artwork and the documentary cover is powerful! It makes you feel grateful for what you have. In many parts of the country, this is how some families make a living. Third world countries really make use of anything and I find that quite amazing. I saw this one video in South America where people actually craft musical instruments from garbage and they provide music education to children.
ReplyDeleteThis film is definitely one I'd like to watch. I think that a lot of the time when it comes to Climate Change we discuss scientific facts and projections for the future, however we forget to look at the here and now and what social responsibility comes with tossing trash off to the side. It's all connected. I really think whether people believe in Climate Change or not, we need to be more conscious of our neighbors--worldwide--who suffer from our trash. We should really think about how much we consume and how much we throw out as well, because this all circles back to them.
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