Beijing the Trashiest Town in China, Yet City Still Wants to Kick Out Recyclers

Beijing may produce more trash than any other city in China, but that's not stopping the city from upping their efforts to toss out the trash recycling guys many of us depend on.

Beijing produced close to 8 million tons of trash last year; nearly enough to cover a space 34 times the size of Manhattan ankle-deep in garbage. That's roughly one kilo of junk generated by our city's 22 million residents every single day, 365 days a year.

That's the amount of household trash that Beijing is inundated with, giving it the unenviable distinction of being China's most garbage-rife city after producing 7.9 million tons of domestic waste in 2015.

This alarming statistic was recently announced by the Ministry of Environmental Protection in its 2016 Annual Report of Solid Waste Pollution Prevention and Control in China. It specified this type of trash as "domestic waste," consisting of cardboard, food scraps, newspapers, and other such materials, all the result of citizens' daily routines.

That monstrous amount of rubbish is part of a steadily growing trend, according to the report, which says the capital's domestic waste has increased by 1.18 million tons in the past two years. China Radio International's (CRI) report about the findings said this problem is compounded by hurdles to proper disposal because finding suitable locations for landfills and incinerators is no easy task in such a crowded city.

That abundance of both people and waste has also brought a serious class issue to the fore. Many of the migrant workers that make a living from taking such junk to the scrapyard have recently contended with a crackdown, as Beijing's authorities attempt to curb its booming population. Reuters (via Channel News Asia) recently spoke with a migrant worker from Henan named Yin who said "The city government is trying to get us migrant workers to leave Beijing, they say there are too many of us and not enough space," before telling the reporter about security guards' efforts to bar them from the scrap yard where they work and live, along with new official signage warning those workers to leave within 10 days.

For Yin, those efforts are not only unfair to marginalized migrants but also foolhardy for the general populace. He said: "Beijingers wouldn't be able to survive for even a day without us ... Who is going to collect all the rubbish? Who is going to recycle it all? Do you think Beijingers would be willing to do this kind of work?"

Considering Beijing's increasing trash issues, perhaps such laborers would prove indispensable. Or, as another migrant scrap collector named Dong Dingxia put it: "I don't understand why we're being kicked out. It won't be good if rubbish starts piling up around the city."

More stories by this author here.

Email: kylemullin@thebeijinger.com
Twitter: @MulKyle

Photo: Wikicommons