This is the EBI landfill just outside La Carpio, Costa Rica. La Carpio is a Nicaraguan immigrant town a few miles north of San Jose, a slum by any definition but also one of the most colourful neighborhoods you will ever see. I use the word literally; on every concrete wall, on every building side, you will find vibrant murals depicting modern romance in the city, pop culture references, political graffiti, and abstract swarms of color that wash out the rough foundation underneath. It is a good way of compensating for the landfill in the backyard. The facility employs a small number of residents from the community, but the vast majority are unemployed or find work elsewhere, often crossing the river to scramble up the steep bank and look for work in the more affluent towns on the other side. In the early pre-dawn hours, the town is shaken from its sleep by the rumbling of the city dump trucks rolling in along its narrow rocky streets; for some trash collectors, it is cheaper to dump the garbage illegally on the outskirts of the town than to pay the entrance fee into the landfill. With the sunrise, children and old grandmothers can be found picking through the piles of debris in search of something only they can find. And yet, when the sunlight hits the colors on the building sides, and when the laughing children gather in the community centers and the churches to claim their lunches, La Carpio doesn't feel so poor again.