"Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of the extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a "full empty," something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend...

Sang Ly struggles to survive by picking through garbage in Cambodia's largest municipal dump. Under threat of eviction by an embittered old drunk who is charged with collecting rents from the poor of Stung Meanchey, Sang Ly embarks on a desperate journey to save her ailing son from a life of ignorance and poverty.

When three trash-picking boys from Rio's slums find a wallet in amongst the daily detritus of their local dump, little do they imagine that their lives are about to change forever. But when the local police show up, offering a handsome reward for the wallet's return, the boys realize that what they've found must be important.

Roddy is a decidedly upper-crust "society mouse" who lives the life of a pampered pet in a posh Kensington flat. When a sewer rat named Sid comes out of the sink, he decides he had hit the jackpot. Roddy schemes to rid himself of Sid by luring him into the "whirlpool." Sid may be an ignorant slob, but he's no fool, but it is Roddy who winds up being flushed away into the bustling sewer world of Ratropolis. There Roddy meets Rita, an enterprising scavenger...