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Q: Are scavangers becoming more agressive?
We all know about the people who recycle.
Is it my imagination, or are they becoming more ruthless and aggressive in their methods.
They used to have a rake about a bin with a stick. Now they just empty the bin onto the pavement and leave a squalid mess behind them.
And they seem to be getting younger. It's no longer the old bent back women doing this. It's the younger aunties on bikes who are becoming compatative.
Anyone else notice this?
Perhaps a trickle down effect on Xi's quest against corruption. Once the party members stop throwing week old working iPhones in their trash, then the scavengers who fed from them needs to expand their hunting grounds.
ScotsAlan:
I have never seen phones in the bin here Scan.
I am asking about the bottle and can scavangers.
They did do a public service in the past by recycling stuff.
Nowadays, certainly in GZ, they are just making a mess as they empty bins onto the street.
Scandinavian:
Yes, but lets say you have a hood that is so upscale that only the party members who are best at corruption can afford to live there. You'd never be allowed in to such a hood. The scavengers that roam here, would live in some high end apartment complex, probably too expensive for a FT, but you can at least be allowed to look over the fence. Here you'd have scavengers who live in a more normal community etc. etc.
So far, I've seen old people scavenging garbage cans for plastic bottles. Well, yesterday, for the first time, I saw a 30 something mother with her 3 kids scavenging around a large construction field. I saw 20 something people, but it's still very rare. I never seen that "quick & dirty" collection method you mentioned. That would mean double work for the street workers.
On a positive note, in my building block, we have garbage sorting. Glass containers and plastic bottles have their dedicated containers, that the same old people will pick. That does have any cost, just a tiny bit of personal discipline.
ScotsAlan:
They are trying to get the locals to do the green sorting here in GZ.
It's a mess. They took all the bins out of the apartments and put them on the street.
Before, the apartment cleaners would sort it on the stairwell and take the stuff of value and put the rubbish in the dumpster.
Now it's just a free for all at the rubbish bins on the street.
Luckily my block has not taken on this new policy yet... because the block committee voted against the local Government's wish to implement it.
But other blocks next to us have done it and the scavangers are making the streets into rubbish tips.
DrMonkey:
My building is a foreigner gettho, it's short term accommodation built specifically for the foreign workers here. Dual garbages are everywhere, nobody give a shit either.
Yes, I've seen that too. They just take out the whole garbage can, upend it and pick what they want and move on to the next one, leaving behind a complete mess. The next morning the garbage collectors will be cursing and swearing because they have to pick up all the mess.
You want to know a funny one?
I left some bottles outside my door to bring down to the trash later on (you know in the hallway of my apartment building). Anyway, I heard some noises and rustling coming from outside my door, so I went to the peek hole and saw some lady picking up the bottles.
I thought to myself, that's weird but whatever... she proceeds to pick up one I didn't empty. I THINK it had water in it but I can't be sure. Anyways, she sniffs it and starts drinking it... finishes it off and takes the bottle with her down the stairs.
I thought to myself... WHAT IN THE WORLD! That could have been piss in there, poisonous water, oil or a whole assortment or things and she just downed it. Who drinks strange fluids from other people's tossed out bottles...
Chinese are weird.
ambivalentmace:
i saw an 80 year old man in beijing with a cardboard collecting tricycle reach in a trash can in the shopping area where you can only walk, no cars, and finish some tofu that someone did not want, right in front of tourists in a nice area. makes you wonder how bad it really was here when he was a child. most residents in my building stack their plastic to sell to some scavenger, sometimes i have to run an obstacle course to the elevator.
