Photos by Eraldo Peres
Against a distant skyline of high-rise buildings, huge vultures dive over the nearly 9 tons of rubbish that arrive daily at the enormous dump in Brazil’s capital as nearly 3,000 trash pickers set aside recyclable plastic, metal and paper to sell.
Known in Portuguese as “catadores,” the people who find their livelihoods at the 430-acre (174-hectare) Estrutural landfill worry about how they’ll survive once the open-air dump closes.
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Below is a collection of photographs by Eraldo Peres covering the catadores and Estrutural landfill.
Click on any image to see the caption.
Opening text from AP PHOTOS: TRASH PICKERS WORRY ABOUT END OF DUMP by
Lead Image Caption: In this May 12, 2014 photo, trash picker Atacilio Fernandes wears a headlamp to continue past sundown searching for recyclable materials to sell at the Estrutual landfill in Brasilia, Brazil. Known in Portuguese as “catadores”, the nearly 3,000 people who make their livelihood at the landfill worry about how they’ll survive once the open-air landfill closes. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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