ABSTRACT
In most urban areas, municipal departments are responsible for the disposal of solid waste. This waste is taken out of the city and transported to landfills or incinerator facilities. However, in reality, long before this garbage is disappeared completely, it is painstakingly – but not completely – sorted to remove anything that might be of value: metals, glass, plastics, paper, cardboard, textiles, aluminium, lead, steel, etc. The informal and unregulated practice of hand-sorting waste has a long history in urban China’s pre-modern times and has continued into the present. It has become an important way to reduce the size of the waste stream and has provided the huge amounts of recycled resources and raw materials that industrial production needs. They have also reduced manufacturing and environmental costs of production considerably, as virgin resources do not need to be prospected, mined, and produced. Nowadays, the people who are sorting through the garbage of others belong to the groups of migrant workers who have moved from the countryside in waves since the 1980s to try to make a living and to become part of the city. They have effectively tried to escape the drudgery and lack of perspective of the countryside, to have more economic and life opportunities, to be recognized as full members of Chinese society and, at some stage, to even become registered as city dwellers – thereby gaining access to the many benefits that urbanites enjoy.
