Megs- You should check out Adam's blog and search under recycling. Recycling is a lot of people's livelihoods here in China. Some people just do Al cans, some just plastic bottles, some newspapers, etc. This morning I had to calm an American friend down because she thought the Starbucks people were being wasteful when, after she complained about her drink, they gave her a new cup with her new drink rather than re-use the old cup. I told her that their throwing that cup away was another guy's income. Reusing the cup wouldn't be fair to him. Each Starbucks in shenzhen gives (they might sell, but I've heard from someone whose child asked for a school project that they give) their trash to a trash picker. At the Startbucks I was at this morning I've seen them often--a man and a woman, maybe husband and wife. They remove the garbage several times a day (even the bathroom garbage) and they get to keep all the proceeds from selling the recyclables. I don't know if they sell directly to the factory or to a next-level broker. There are a lot of people in China supporting themselves by picking through the trash and finding recyclables. I miss that about our old neighborhood, possibly the only thing. We were near a huge area where a lot of the blue-tricycle trash collectors congregated, and some of them loved bike-racing Myles down the street. Most Chinese people look down on these people, but Myles was happy for the competition.
Anonymous said…
Megs - Believe it or not, recovered styrofoam is a lucrative commodity and yes, someone can make a living by doing it. The stuff you see in Jen's photo runs roughly (very roughly - I don't follow this market closely) US$.30/lb. Add (roughly) US$.10 per lb. if it's been chopped up, and hasn't been contaminated by other materials. And add another US$.08 - US$.10 if it's been melted/reprocessed into pellets. So, roughly, equivalent in value to aluminum cans.
Adam, when did blogspot blogs become unblocked? I just noticed you are accessing without a VPN. heh.
Anonymous said…
Not sure. It seems like a bunch of sites opened up in the last day or so ... I've just returned from ten days in Thailand, so it seems to have happened while I was away. Enjoy it while it lasts ... through the Olympics?
Comments
Megs- You should check out Adam's blog and search under recycling.
Recycling is a lot of people's livelihoods here in China. Some people just do Al cans, some just plastic bottles, some newspapers, etc. This morning I had to calm an American friend down because she thought the Starbucks people were being wasteful when, after she complained about her drink, they gave her a new cup with her new drink rather than re-use the old cup. I told her that their throwing that cup away was another guy's income. Reusing the cup wouldn't be fair to him. Each Starbucks in shenzhen gives (they might sell, but I've heard from someone whose child asked for a school project that they give) their trash to a trash picker. At the Startbucks I was at this morning I've seen them often--a man and a woman, maybe husband and wife. They remove the garbage several times a day (even the bathroom garbage) and they get to keep all the proceeds from selling the recyclables. I don't know if they sell directly to the factory or to a next-level broker.
There are a lot of people in China supporting themselves by picking through the trash and finding recyclables. I miss that about our old neighborhood, possibly the only thing. We were near a huge area where a lot of the blue-tricycle trash collectors congregated, and some of them loved bike-racing Myles down the street. Most Chinese people look down on these people, but Myles was happy for the competition.
heh.