in an effort to move away from the restrictive world of fine arts muniz returns from new york to his native brazil to the world's largest landfill, jardim gramacho, which is situated outside the city of rio de janeiro and is surrounded by favelas controlled by the drug traffickers.

with the goal of changing the lives of a group of people using the material that they work with every day muniz collaborates with garbage pickers, known as 'catadores' a group of people largely excluded from society who shift rio de janeiro's landfill containing the rubbish of both the rich and poor in the search of recyclables.

alongside them he then creates portraits of the workers using the very recyclable materials they have collected, and then takes photographs of these portraits.