Life on a Brasilia rubbish dump

Report 11: Brasilia

As Brazil gears up for presidential elections starting on 6 October, BBC Brasil's Paulo Cabral travels through remote mountains, arid countryside and deep jungle to find out what 21st Century politics mean in the Brazil that normally goes unreported.

Less than 20 kilometres from the centre of Brasilia and the country's government ministries, congress and presidential palace, some 3,000 people live off what the city throws away.

Scavengers usually make about $13 a week

The rubbish scavengers spend their days clambering over huge mounds of waste, dumped in the so-called Lixão - an officially controlled landfill - of the city's Estrutural district.

They sift through the rubbish looking for anything that can be used or resold.

"Heat, dust and dirt. That's all it is. If we carry on we will grow old and die in the rubbish heaps," said Yrones Gomes dos Santos.

She is 52 years old and has worked on the lixão for 14 years.

Click here to read Paulo's answers to your questions about his trip

"It is good because at least we earn some money, but not much. And there is no future in it," she said.

Some of the rubbish scavengers wear gloves, but many sift through the rubbish with their bare hands.

Scavenger Claudinei Santos says community needs piping, tarmac and schools

They have to go through the rubbish quickly before the trucks arrive and push it into the landfill for burial.

The trucks work non-stop, handling about 1.8 metric tons of waste each day.

A rubbish scavenger who is strong, quick, and works fulltime, can earn up to 150 Brazilian reals per week, a good wage compared to that for ordinary unskilled labour.

Cash for trash

But normally a scavenger will make only R50 a week, selling plastic bottles, rubbish sacks, tins, computer components, broken electronic apparatus and other waste.

Some of the scavengers sift through the waste without gloves

Everything that is found is actually resold in the lixão to scavengers-turned-business-men, who have set up offices on site, using cardboard boxes and old chairs found among the waste.

On a good day the scavengers also find clothes, shoes and even functioning watches and mobile phones.

Real money covers the surface of the landfill: old, fake or faulty banknotes that have been shredded by the Central Bank and look like confetti sprinkled over the rubbish.

Days numbered?

There is a government project to try to close the lixão, which lies next to water sources that supply the capital.

But the residents are resisting change.

Presidential election

First round: 6 October

Run-off: 27 October

Key candidates

Jose Serra - ruling centrist coalition

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva - Workers' Party

Ciro Gomes - centre-left Labour Front coalition

Anthony Garotinho - Socialist Party candidate

"We don't want to see the lixão close. We want better conditions for our work, but this is our only livelihood and the only way we have of supporting our families," said scavenger Ronaldo Lima.

At present only those who are registered with the Association of Rubbish Scavengers can enter the lixão.

The system was set up because Belacap, the gardening and cleaning service of urban Brasilia, was afraid that an invasion of the landfill would have hindered the official refuse collectors and divided the spoils between an uncontrolled number of scavengers.

Waste settlement

The lixão in the region of Estrutural started off at the same time as Brasilia - in 1961.

Only a few years later the first scavengers' shacks sprung up nearby.

The colony became known as the City of Estrutural and today has 5,000 houses and shacks and 20,000 residents.

Only registered scavengers can enter the rubbish tip

With elections around the corner, many candidates have gone canvassing in this shantytown. But they are not allowed into the lixão.

Claudinei Santos, another scavenger, hopes that some of the election promises will be kept.

"The population deserves improvements. We need piping, tarmac and schools," he said. "We want improved infrastructure."