Plastic of the Lemon Grove
One of Nicaragua's most peculiar imports is trash. Countries like the United States pay to ship their garbage to Nicaragua in order to lessen the size of their landfills. However, this trash isn't just useful to the country as a means of furthering global economic status. Instead, several of the impoverished and industrious citizens of Nicaragua wind up utilizing this trash by sorting out and selling recyclables from these landfills. Several churecas (literally 'city dump') have sprung up around these dump sites, where people both live and work in close proximity to this trash. Plastic of the Lemon Grove is a Spanish-language documentary of one of these churecas, El Limonal, in Chinandega, Nicaragua. The citizens of El Limonal are surrounded by the city of Chinandega, the dump, a graveyard, and overlooked by a slaughterhouse, with runoff draining into their water supply. This documentary shows the citizens of El Limonal at work, following the process of dumping, through the picking of plastics, aluminum, glass and other valuables, their sale to various village barons and finally their arrival at large recycling contingencies. The documentary also follows daily life and play in the dump and seeks what that might mean to those growing up there. Without dipping in to maudlin sentimentality or righteous condemnation, Plastic of the Lemon Grove seeks to show the people of El Limonal and what their lives typically entail.
