Haiti has a huge trash and management problem.
Within Haiti and Port-au-Prince, the large Cité Soleil neighborhood has it worse than most because of its poverty and sea level location.
Six canals, stuffed with trash like this one, cut through Cité Soleil on the way to the ocean — making them both a sanitation and flood hazard for this area that is home to more than 300,000 people.
Add to this that often the only immediate way to reduce the volume of the trash is to burn it and you can add air pollution to the host of ills the trash causes.
But the FatraKa art and plastic recycling programs are finding ways to transform this huge trash problem into treasure — and along the way creating beautiful art and new products that showcase the tremendous imagination of the youths of Haiti and Cité Soleil.