Recycling again

Down a dingy lane in downtown Shaoxing I saw this recycling man loading his tricycle up with an odd assortment of items that he will ride somewhere and offload for a few Yuan to keep him and his family going.

The lane was a pretty old lane, but with thriving businesses along either side of it.

The lanes are pretty narrow - and this type of vehicle is certainly ideal for removing rubbish and unwanted items in these old villages.

Carts and more carts

This guy was pulling his cart in the college grounds. He was probably collecting things for recyclking. Anything that is recycled is collected by a variety of different people. We can never tell whether they are doing this just to make pocket money or they are paid to do so. Men with these sort of carts do seem to be workers on staff and they appear and empty all the bins around the college.

Mostly the "good" stuff has been taken by other workers. All bottles, cardboard, clean paper etc. will have been collected by the many staff who cannot pass a bin without checking its contents.

This guy was also wearing a "triangle hat" made of bamboo I think. He was happy to be photographed.

The cardboard box man

This loaded tricycle was in the college grounds. It is a new semester and many things (e.g. books, bedding etc) have come into the college in cardboard boxes.

I couldn't help myself - just had to take a picture of it. And I heard giggles from behind me when I stopped to take the photo. Three new students were following me along the pathway and thought it odd that I would stop and take such a photo.

"Where are you from?" they asked in good English. I pretended to hop like a kangaroo - and let's face it, it is not easy to do, but they shrieked with laughter and shouted "Australia." We all laughed and went on with our respective journeys.

Carboard carrier

Recycling is done very differently in China. Much of the sorting is done on the side of the road. This man obviously collects cardboard. He would have businesses that he would call on to collect their discarded cardboard, and he would take it to a place where it might be sorted for recycling.

The tricycles are laden high with the spoils of the day's collecting activity. This man was struggling riding his tricycle up a slight incline over one of the bridges in the city. About the middle of the bridge he would have climbed into the saddly for the down hill run on the other side of the bridge.