The talk focuses on the municipal waste management in the Turkish & Roma neighborhood of Stolipinovo, Plovidv, showing how urban marginalization is reproduced, justified and renewed. It explores the racialising effect of the public images of trash in Stolipinovo and demonstrates how they are circulated, produced and amplified by journalist practices in tandem with the actions and discourse of Plovdiv’s local government – the very institution responsible for solving the problem. The symbiosis takes place to such a degree that I propose the notion of ‘media-government complex’.