A social documentary based around the lives of garbage pickers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the world's largest garbage dump, as filmmaker Vik Muniz creates art out of recycled material. There he photographs an eclectic band of “catadores”—self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was to “paint” the catadores with garbage.  However, his collaboration with the characters as they recreate photographic images of themselves out of garbage reveals both the dignity and despair of the catadores as they begin to re-imagine their lives.