Hong Kong
Zigzagging by means of bustling streets, trolleys piled excessive with sheets of discarded cardboard, these aged scavengers are exhausting to overlook in Hong Kong.
Many are of their 70s or older, hauling tens of kilograms of cardboard for a pittance with the intention to scrape by in a single of Asia’s richest cities.
They navigate steep hills and slender streets, baking sunshine and torrential downpours. They don’t have any official job title, leaving them in danger of having their trolleys or hauls confiscated by municipal officers.
On a good day, they might make $12, barely sufficient to pay for two meals.
NCS follows a “cardboard granny,” as the employees are recognized, for a night time and speaks to a number of others.
Grueling hours: Wu Sau-jing, 71, hits the road at 2am each night time to begin gathering cardboard discarded on the road by companies and eating places. She kinds her findings into classes after which takes them to a native recycling agency to promote them. By the time she heads residence it’s often round 11am.
“I maintain a livelihood and it’s also my hobby. If you don’t like it, it can be quite exhausting,” she tells NCS.
Little return: Lai, in her 70s, says she makes about HK$100 ($12) per day, barely sufficient to pay for each lunch and dinner.
Despite the massive wealth in Hong Kong, many aged residents battle. In a 2024 report, the charity Oxfam Hong Kong estimated that 580,000 aged folks within the city had been residing in poverty. The authorities gives aged residents a small month-to-month allowance however some want and select to earn extra to cowl residing prices in a single of the world’s most costly cities.
Lai’s earnings have halved up to now 12 months. She says recycling corporations used to pay HK$0.6 ($0.078) per kilogram, the minimal advisable by the federal government, however now provide solely HK$0.3 ($0.038). Worse nonetheless, generally she will get nothing when strangers or authorities officers throw away her collected gadgets, mistaking them for rubbish blocking the roads.
A nasty day: After pushing her trolley from one district to a different one afternoon, Chan Ngai-kan, 95, discovered the recycling outpost she often goes to was not accepting cardboard. That day, she ended up disposing of her haul at a garbage station close by, strolling away with none cash. It’s a big blow, she tells NCS.
“My children are in Canada and I have no money,” she says.
Cardboard uncle: Cheung, 80, is one of the few males who collect cardboard. He doesn’t have a schedule, preferring as an alternative to easily decide up no matter cardboard he comes throughout. Once he’s amassed sufficient, it’s a 30-minute journey pushing his trolley from his residence to the closest recycling middle, together with up some steep roads.
A wasteful city: Hong Kong generates about 1.51 kg waste per capita each day, far outweighing its Asian neighbors, comparable to Tokyo (0.88 kg), Seoul (0.95 kg) and Taipei (1.139 kg). Only between 30%-40% of Hong Kong’s waste is recycled, in response to official figures, in comparison with greater than half in Taiwan and South Korea.
For the previous three a long time, Wu has returned to the identical road, for the identical routine each night time. The job is precarious and the hours are gruelling, however for her, it has turn out to be an habit. “It’s like smoking and gambling,” she quips. “It’s a hobby you can’t get rid of…I’ll do it until the day I can’t do it anymore.”