Orchestra Turns Trash Into Music
Outside the Paraguayan capital of Asunción there is a slum called Caetura, home to 40,000 people, and its beleaguered community is rife with poverty, drugs, and crime. As many as 40% of children who grow up in Caetura never finish school because their parents pull them out to work. The community faces another challenge: it serves as Asunción’s largest trash dump, where millions of pounds of garbage are deposited each day. However, there a glimmer of hope emerging from among the trash. A small group of kids in Caetura are proving that beauty can come out of the harshest environments. They are the members of the Recycled Orchestra and the focus of the documentary Landfill Harmonic. Founded by environmental consultant and guitarist Favio Chávez, the orchestra plays on instruments made from trash. The students have even performed with heavy metal band Megadeth and with Metallica.
