The Waste Commons/ De l’ordure à l’or dur + Q&A with director Rosalind Fredericks

As cities around the world modernise, enclosing open-air dumps and outlawing waste-picking have become key strategies of urban reform. The Waste Commons explores the dramatic transformations surrounding the impending closure of Dakar’s city waste dump in Senegal and the lives that hang in the balance. The film follows charismatic Zidane, trailblazing Adja, and their community of waste pickers as they defend their carefully crafted worlds and their right to waste.

“The intricate lifeworlds and recycling networks built by waste pickers since 1968 at Dakar’s dump, Mbeubeuss.” Letterboxd