A large city like Beijing, with the population more than 22 million, produces 1.84 tons household garbage. Very few people know where recyclable scrap goes and how will the city handle those. There are more than a hundred recyclable scrap markets in suburban areas of Beijing, also the destinations of much of Beijing’s recyclable scrap. The yards of the markets are filled with blocks of crushed metal, stacks of cardboard, heaps of plastic bottles and piles of newspapers and rags. People there work on sorting and preparing it for a second life. When the dark falls in the city, tricycles and trucks throng to the village, loaded with discarded cardboard, paper and plastic bottles.
