上海的废品回收大军

上海的废品回收大军 China is often accused of all but destroying its environment in the name of economic growth. But the same naked capitalism that has poisoned Chinese skies and waterways is hard at work in the streets of Shanghai, cleaning up the mess. China has a 10m-strong illegal army of rubbish entrepreneurs and in Shanghai they can seem ubiquitous. Three-wheeled bicycles piled impossibly high with plastic, cardboard and Styrofoam ply the streets. Pensioners pick through rubbish bins for drinks cans, or beg empty water bottles from tourists. Grannies brave the subway at rush hour to collect commuters' discarded newspapers. Migrant workers go door to door like rag men, buying up the cast-offs of Shanghai's conspicuous consumption, designer water bottles and flat screen television boxes which would otherwise clog up the city's landfills. While China's leaders bicker with environmentalists over emissions targets, it can appear that its people are quietly getting on with the task of making the planet a better place to live. But while Beijing has a grand plan for the greening of China, the country's trash pickers are decidedly not part of it. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics they were largely run out of town (with disastrous consequences for city waste, as recyclables piled up on pavements). And recyclers in Shanghai's uber-chic French concession are already making plans to leave town during the city's six-month World Expo, which starts May 1. They are mostly unlicensed migrants without city residency documents, and therefore vulnerable to any crackdown on rubbish peddlers and to a general Expo-inspired anti-migrant campaign. The irony of such a purge is clearly lost on the government: Expo's central theme is green cities, and many Expo pavilions have been constructed with recycled materials. The past year has been tough already for China's recyclers: the global financial crisis savaged rubbish prices, which still languish well below their pre-crisis levels. Cai Yan Fen has a paper and plastic recycling business on the outskirts of Shanghai, where she lives with her eight- month-old baby in a shack next to a muddy yard strewn with twisted bits of scrap metal, broken toilet seats and twine. She says Shanghai residents stopped selling their waste during the crisis, because it simply was not worth it to them. “It was a big blow to our business,” she says, noting that profits have still not recovered. She now has to sell 10kg of paper to make a single renminbi in profit. But Fu Li Ping, the head of the Shanghai waste administration, has little positive to say about Shanghai's rubbish brigade, arguing that their motives have more to do with profits than the environment. Their recycling stations are eyesores that are being removed as part of the greening of Shanghai for Expo, she says, without a hint of irony. Shanghai has its own plan to encourage recycling by residents, which requires them to store recycling in their minuscule flats for a month at a time –in exchange for points they can redeem for recycled pencils and other trinkets online. Ms Fu hardly disputes the fact that anyone rich enough to have space in their flat for a month's worth of newspapers – in one of the world's priciest property markets – probably can do without another pencil. The government has legitimate reason for concern. Though recyclers reduce the rubbish going into landfills –and reduce public tensions too, since residents protest when overflowing landfills mean it must be burned –the by-products of illegal recycling can be toxic and dangerous. Itinerant recyclers dismantling a laptop for scrap can often leave plenty of other waste behind when they are done. Shanghai wants to regulate the recyclers, and even issue them with uniforms. “The government looks at these people as disorder, and the Chinese gov ernment hates disorder,” says Adam Minter, author of the blog Shanghai Scrap. “They are like Mao's army during the Long March days: very irregular, but very efficient. The government wants to turn them into a regular army.” But that will take time, and in the meantime Beijing is working all-out to increase private consumption. Whatever will happen to all those boxes? 外界经常指责中国简直是在打着发展经济的旗号破坏本国环境。赤裸裸的资本主义污染了中国的天空与水道,但同样是这种资本主义,却在上海街头努力清理着废弃物。 中国有一支上千万人之众的非法废品回收大军。在上海,这些人似乎无处不在。 堆积着多得令人难以置信的塑料、纸板和泡沫塑料的三轮车,定点穿梭在街道巷尾。一些靠退休金为生的人在垃圾箱里翻翻捡捡,搜寻着饮料罐,或是去索要游客手中的空矿泉水瓶。老太太们在上下班高峰时间勇敢地走进地铁,收集通勤族丢弃的报纸。民工们像废品回收商一样,逐门逐户地收购上海炫耀性消费的废弃物、高级矿泉水的瓶子和平板电视的包装箱——如果没有他们,这些废弃物将堆满上海的垃圾填埋场。 在中国领导人围绕排放目标与环保人士唇枪舌剑之时,我们似乎能够看到,中国人民正悄然承担起让地球变得更宜居的任务。 不过,尽管中国政府制定了一项绿化中国的宏伟 计划 项目进度计划表范例计划下载计划下载计划下载课程教学计划下载 ,但该国的废品回收大军却肯定未被纳入其中。在2008年北京奥运会期间,这些人大多被赶出了城(这给城市垃圾处理造成了灾难性后果,不少可回收物堆积在人行道上)。 在上海极为别致的前法租界收废品的人,已盘算好在为期6个月的世博会(World Expo)期间离开这座城市(上海世博会将于5月1日开幕)。他们大多是没有暂住证和营业执照的民工。因此,面对任何整治废品贩子的专项行动,以及为办好世博而展开的一般性清理外来务工人员行动,这些人很容易受到冲击。 政府显然没有意识到这类清理行动所包含的讽刺意味:这届世博会的核心主题是绿色城市,而许多世博展馆是用再生材料建造的。 对中国的废品回收大军来说,过去的一年本已十分艰难:全球金融危机令废品价格大跌,目前仍处在远低于危机前水平的价位。 蔡艳芬(音译)在上海市郊做着回收废纸和废塑料的生意。她与自己8个月大的孩子就住在市郊的一座棚屋里,棚屋旁边是一个泥泞的院子,堆满了扭曲的废金属条、破马桶圈和绳子。 她表示,此次危机期间,上海居民不再卖废品了,因为他们觉得根本不值得卖。 蔡艳芬说:“这对我们生意打击很大。”她表示,现在利润仍然没有复原。她如今需要卖出10公斤废纸,才能赚到一块钱。 但上海市废弃物管理处社会宣传科负责人傅丽萍,对该市的废品回收大军却没有什么正面的评价。她认为这些人的动机更多是出于赚钱,而不是环保。她并无嘲讽之意地表示,作为办好世博绿化上海行动的一部分,那些影响市容的废品回收点将被清除。 上海已制定了鼓励居民回收利用的计划。该计划要求,居民每个月先把丢弃的可回收物存放在自己狭小的公寓里,以便到时交出,换取可在线兑换再生铅笔及其它小礼品的积分。 傅女士很难辩驳这样一个事实:任何富到家里有地方存放整整一个月废报纸的人,都很可能不再需要额外的铅笔——上海可是全球房价最贵的城市之一。 政府对废品回收大军的担心有其正当理由。虽然这些废品回收者减少了涌入填埋场的垃圾,同时也缓解了公众的紧张情绪——因为当填埋场满容、不得不焚烧垃圾时,会引发居民的抗议——但非法回收带来的副产品,却可能是有毒和危险的。当走街串巷的废品回收者拆解一部笔记本电脑寻找到所需的废品后,他们往往会把余下的大量废弃物丢弃在一边。 上海希望规范废品回收者的行为,甚至想给他们发制服。 博客Shanghai Scrap的博主亚当?明特(Adam Minter)表示:“政府认为这些人毫无秩序,而中国政府讨厌无序。” “他们就像长征时期毛泽东的军队一样:很不正规,但非常能干。政府希望把他们改编为正规军。” 但这需要时间。与此同时,中国政府正在全力以赴增加私人消费。等待那些废纸箱子的,究竟会是什么样的命运?