Landfill Harmonic: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra

What if the music from the landfills could be heard?
What sounds would discarded materials make if given a voice?

That’s exactly what Landfill Harmonic explores. It’s a powerful documentary that came out around 2015, and continues to strike a chord even a decade later. Set in Cateura, a sprawling landfill on the outskirts of Asunción, Paraguay, the film follows a group of children from a slum built around garbage. The Cateura landfill receives around 750 to 800 tonnes of waste every single day. For hundreds of families, that garbage is a lifeline. About 600 informal workers, often called "Gancheros," scavenge recyclable materials to earn a living.

The film tells the story of a group of young musicians in Paraguay who play violins, cellos, flutes, and drums, all made entirely from garbage. They used real instruments built from old oil drums, paint cans, coins, and pipes.

These children are part of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, a musical group founded by Argentinian environmental technician, musician, and director Favio Chavez. With the help of Nicolás Gómez, a carpenter and former trash picker, and other artisans, they began crafting violins from old paint cans, cellos from oil barrels, flutes from water pipes, and drums from discarded tins.

In a place where access to even basic instruments is a luxury, Favio and the local community did something extraordinary. They turned the very trash around them into violins and flutes. They soon started performing, first locally and then globally. They were playing sold-out concerts and sharing stages in places like London’s Lancaster House, where, as reported by Khaleej Times in January 2025, they amazed the audience with music made from metal scraps and discarded cans.

(Image credit - The Recycled Orchestra - pictured by AFP)

Landfill Harmonic is a film about hope rising from one of the most unlikely places on Earth.

The film gently but powerfully holds up a mirror to our consumption habits, our throwaway culture, and the real people living at the intersection of poverty and pollution. 

There’s no romanticising here. Cateura is still a landfill. The kids still face hardship. But Landfill Harmonic makes shows how you don’t need perfect conditions to start something beautiful. You need people who believe. Overlooked waste became a resource when seen through a different lens revealing the forgotten value and hidden potential in what the world had cast aside.

This is the real power of art changing lives. When reuse is tied to purpose, it not only gives materials a second chance but also opens new paths for people who’ve long been ignored.