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Beyond Gramacho reveals the socio-economic and environmental conditions, struggles and opportunities that are present in informal resource recovery. Over 1,800 Catadores work day and night at the landfill and neighboring recycling cooperatives, recovering recyclable materials from the waste stream. Almost at its capacity, Gramacho receives about 7,000 metric tons of waste every day, not only from Rio de Janeiro and Duque de Caxias but also from the neighboring municipalities.

This video takes you through the residential area, a squatter settlement beside the landfill, where many of the Catadores and their families live. The video portrays the sad reality of the extreme poverty and exclusion this community faces. As meager as this work is, it is for many the only life they have known, and the proposed closure of the landfill poses a major threat to their livelihoods. The video illustrates the growing national social movement of Catadores, the Movimento Nacional dos Catadores, and showcases some successful experiences from the Greater Metropolitan Region of São Paulo.

The video is produced by the Community-Based Research Laboratory at the University of Victoria in Canada and ECOS Communications, Inc., Victoria.