ANTHROPOCENE: DANDORA
ABOUT
The Dandora Landfill is the largest of its kind in Kenya. It receives industrial, agricultural, commercial and medical waste, amounting to about 2,000 tonnes per day. It is estimated that more than a million people live in the vicinity of the landfill. Residents work informally, sorting scrap by hand and selling it to recycling plants on site. The plastic hills and canyons of Dandora represent not only an entirely human landscape but also an emerging microeconomy. Prolific and easy to obtain, waste plastic has become a resource on its own, to be mined and sold as source material. But so much of it cannot be re-used and will be left to congeal in landfills, spilling into our waterways and oceans, eventually forming a significant sediment layer in the strata of the planet, and marking the Anthropocene in geological time.
Nicholas de Pencier is a Director, Producer, and Director of Photography working in documentary and video installation. He is President of Mercury Films Inc., the Toronto-based production company he shares with his partner, Jennifer Baichwal.
For 30 years, Jennifer Baichwal has been making feature length multiple award-winning documentaries that have played all over the world.
CREDITS
Jennifer Baichwal
Edward Burtynsky
Nadia Tavazzani