The Payatas dump is located in the suburbs of Manila, 20 km away from the central area of the city. It is called Smoky Valley after Smoky Mountain, the biggest garbage dump in the Phillipines and one of the three biggest slums in the world. Smoky Mountain was dismantled by the government in 1995.
Smoky Valley is 70 ha large where 3,000 ton of garbage is brought in every day. Around Smoky Valley, approximately 92,000 scavengers (18,000 families) live. Most of them are illegal squatters who have lost their job in poor farming villages.
Most of the scavengers collect the usable items, that is, paper, plastic, empty cans, aluminum, vinyl and so on, from the garbage, sell them to ragmen to make their living. The average income per day is 200 pesos (aprx. 600 yen.)
In such a dump, it is not rare that children as young as four years old scavenge from early morning till late at night in order to help the ends meet.
Therefore, many of them are unable to go to school. Due to the harsh living conditions, many children suffer from malnutrition and skin diseases. The infant mortality rate is as high as 30%.

[References]
Basic Information on the PAYATAS LOW-INCOME COMMUNITYPresidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP) 1993Daichi no shio vol 1.
(ACCE Suncup Daycare Center, Japan Campaign Committee) 1995