Smokey Mountain is the name given to a 22 hectare mountain of garbage that used to function as Metro Manila’s main garbage dump. Located in Baranggay Balut in an area bordering Manila Bay in Tondo, Manila, the garbage mountain epitomized the squalor and poverty that characterized Asia in the 1980s. The suffering resulting from the extremes of poverty concentrated in this area were further compounded by high incidences of violence and crime. A 1988 survey estimated that nearly 13,500 individuals resided around the dumpsite and a majority of these people were scavengers. These garbage scavengers lived off of the waste brought in everyday salvaging anything that could be recycled and resold to generate income. They built their homes and, sometimes, even their meals from materials recovered from trash. A study once discovered thirty-three different diseases among those living there; morbidity and mortality were two to three times higher than the rest of the city.