Smokey Mountain rubbish dump, at Steung Mean Chey, started as a landfill site sixty years ago, and is now part of Phnom Penh, Cambodia; the grey cloud of acrid smoke exuding from constantly burning garbage gives it its nickname. There are over 2,000 casual workers, including some 600 children, who scavenge across the dumpsite, collecting plastic bags, metal, plastics and paper; which are then sorted, cleaned, weighed, and sold for recycling. People work, eat, and sleep amidst the rubbish and constant fumes, their strenuous labor earns them about $1 per day. Waste pickers even work night-shifts using miner's lamps to illuminate their way, one of Smokey Mountain's most visually striking characteristics. It is a place notorious for pollution, crime, and disease; medical waste is a constant hazard.

In Asia, whole communities have developed out of the waste industry, handling some 75% of urban waste. What is a life of misery for some, is an example of sustainable development to others. Across Asia, the figures for recycling man-made resources, by such communities, are staggeringly high compared with the western developed countries. Informal waste collection systems have environmental and economic advantages, reducing the need for landfill, saving natural resources, while providing an important lifeline for some of the world's poorest people, but waste scavengers have dramatically shortened life expectancies, poor health and bad living conditions