Mulligan's inspiration for "Trash"
Smokey Mountain Dump Site, Manila
Click on the map (above) to find information about the Smokey Mountain Dump in Manila.
Go to Google Earth for a tour of the places in Manila mentioned in the novel.
Smokey Mountain is a big landfill site in Manila in the Philippines. It was called "Smokey Mountain" because of the thick smoke coming from the burning waste. There were 2 million tons of waste dumped there, making a huge mountain. Many poor people lived in a shanty town at Smokey Mountain. They earned money by selling things they found in the waste. These were things like plastic bottles, glass, cardboard, and copper wire.
The Philippine government closed Smokey Mountain in 1995 and cleaned up the landfill site. They covered up the mountain of waste with dirt. They planted grass and trees. They knocked down the shanty town. New houses were built next to Smokey Mountain.
This did not stop all the problems. Many poor people moved to a new landfill very close to Smokey Mountain. Waste is still dumped in that new landfill. The poor people built a new shanty town there. In the new landfill they still work all day looking in the waste for things they can sell.
Discusion Question: Why did the closure of the Smokey Mountain not improve the situation for the inhabitants of the shanty town?
Student Activities
- Article: Life in a Cambodian Rubbish DumpLife in a Cambodian Rubbish Dump is an article published on ABC News written by Amy Simmons about Omar Havana, a Spanish photojournalist, and his experience over seven months getting to know and document the lives of people living among a Cambodian rubbish dump.
- Article: Living in LandfillSome 15 million people live and work within sprawling municipal rubbish tips around the globe. By Rachel England, The Independent, 18 March 2017.
- Blog post: Meet the kids scavenging on rubbish dumps to surviveMeet Margaret, from Kenya. Margaret lives with her family on the Mwakirunge dumpsite just outside Mombasa. She is 10 years old.
- Life on Trash mountainThe humble gumboot is saving the lives of children living on Cambodia's rubbish heaps.
From the library
Child Labour by
168 million boys and girls work as child labourers in farms, fields, factories, homes, streets and battlefields around the world. A staggering 85 million are engaged in illegal, hazardous work which is harmful to physical, mental, spiritual, moral and educational development.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781925339277Publication Date: 2017
Smokey Mountain, Manila
Stung Meachey Garbage Dump, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Stung Meanchey, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Shelter on Stung Meanchey Dump
Pickers at Stung Meachey
Homes on Stung Meanchey Rubbish Dump
Floating Rubbish - Children risking their lives, Philippines
Videos: Child Labour on Dumpsites
Meet the kids surviving off trash dumps
Many children in this wealthy city work all day in large garbage dumps, scavenging for recyclables to support their families. This weekly storytelling series uses the imagery of photographers and adventurers around the world to give us a deeper connection to and understanding of the human condition.
SOURCE: Stories (2015), posted on YouTube, [3:43 mins] URL: https://youtu.be/9DzbbEcFwOc
Life at the Dandora Dumpsite
The Dandora dumpsite is located in Nairobi Eastlands area -- It covers approximately 30 acres of land and is home to many individuals including young boys. The state of affairs is worrying because the number of underage boys living at the mentioned dumpsite is increasing. Who will speak for them? Who will enable them to air out their grievances? What can we do to change and make their situation better?
SOURCE: Arigatou International GNRC (2014), posted on YouTube, [8:44 mins] URL: https://youtu.be/PiVhL047t9w
The rich, the poor and the trash (Inequality documentary)
Inequality is growing. The rich consume much more than the poor and produce much more waste. Trash has become a symbol of our times. But what some people throw away, means money to others and a chance to survive. The amount of waste we generate and the way we deal with it speak volumes about our consumption and prosperity - and also about our levels of social inequality. In the documentary, "The Rich, the Poor and the Trash," co-directors Naomi Phillips and Thomas Hasel explore the lives of people both working with and living off trash.
SOURCE: DW Documentary (2018), posted on YouTube,[28:25 mins] URL: https://youtu.be/G_e7eFSkEjw
Small Steps Project
Stung Meanchey was a municipal rubbish dump on the outskirts of Cambodia’s captial city Phnom Penh which, over a period of 20 years, grew to cover more than 100 acres. In 2009, when Small Steps Project first visited the dump, there were between 500-1000 people working on the dump every day. At least half of these were children. This included approximately 100 people living directly on the rubbish. There were countless more living in slums around the dump.
Small Steps Project delivered its first ever aid project on this dump, delivering a Phase 1 Shoe Distribution which provided 900 people with shoes and wellington boots, as well as food, clothes and mosquito nets and hygiene kits.
After much media exposure, the dump was officially closed in 2009. PSE, together with Friends International and the Cambodian Children’s Fund, continue to help the children and families still living in the area.
Small Steps Project returned to Stung Meanchey in November 2010 to check that it had been closed. You can watch what happened in the video "Small Steps: Sihanoukville." The former landfill was covered in vegetation, which looked much better but the area and the water was still contaminated.
Downloaded 18 August 2013 Source: http://www.smallstepsproject.org
This is what happened when Small Steps went back to Cambodia a year later.
Organisations assisting people living on dumpsites
- Suwung Community Centre"The vision of the BaliLife’s “Suwung Community Centre” is to provide a safe place that the children and their families know and can come for support. This is a place that works to restore HOPE, DIGNITY and PURPOSE to the children who can’t go to school due their parent’s financial situation."
- Care AustraliaPoverty puts many children in jeopardy the second their lives begin. Every year, 7.6 million children die before they even reach age 5, many from causes that can be prevented with proper immunizations, proper nutrition and adequate water and sanitation.
- Caritas AustraliaCaritas Australia has programs in place in over 30 developing countries. Our programs help break the chain of poverty and injustice. They are a beacon of hope for women, men and children in marginalised communities. Explore some of the key issues that underpin human development and impact on poverty.
- Children of the DumpThe children who are helped live in the areas around the barrios of Payatas and San Isidro, now the site of the largest rubbish dump in Manila. This is a city of over 13 million people in the Philippines.