The Chuan Hu Company (
With no fixed working hours, the family toils from daybreak to eight or nine in the evening, seven days a week, year round -- just as many others in the business do. A visit to the premises found the family's youngest son squatting in a corner, trying to break open what looked like an electronic appliance. Half an hour later, he was still at it.
PHOTO: VICO LEE, TAIPEI TIMES
"He's trying to separate the copper from the stereo's plastic shell. Copper's much more expensive than plastic. We can get many dollars for a kilogram," Huang Yeh-cheng (
PHOTO: VICO LEE, TAIPEITIMES
Next to the stereo lies part of a gadget which bears the label "oxygen-supplying healthy rocking machine," another piece of trash the Huangs will turn into money.
The Huangs agreed to let me have a look inside after much persuasion. The nature of the business, the stigma that it carries, and frequent trouble with their neighbors have taught them to keep a low profile.
As the company's driver, Huang Yeh-cheng takes the sorted waste in truckloads to wholesalers, who separate, for example, paper into different groups and sell it to factories who pulp it down into industrial paper.
Keeping it in the family
Like most other waste collecting companies in Taiwan, Chuan Hu is a family business that started generations ago. The mother has run the company for over 20 years and hopes to hand it down to her sons in the future, a suggestion Huang Yeh-cheng first rejected.
"We call the business `environmental protection,' but to put it frankly, it's just garbage collecting. Nobody enjoys it. Sometimes when I go to pick up trash, the scavengers frown and ask why a young man like me can't find a decent job. In most cases, waste collecting, like scavenging, is for people who cannot find anything better to do," Huang said.
Now in his early-twenties, Huang worked as a waiter in several different restaurants and bartended at night after he graduated from school, sleeping only five hours each day. After several years of this he realized that no matter how hard he worked, he would never be able to save enough money to buy a car and house -- most people's prerequisites for a stable future and family life. To do this, he had to get into the waste collecting business. Now Huang makes many times more than his schoolmates do, and he has become positive about the business. "You'll never starve doing this. As long as there is human activity, there will always be waste to collect," he said.
But it is not easy money.
Dress for work consists of dirty clothing, rags so old that you can't even tell what the original colors were, cotton gloves, protective sleeves and hemp hats that are necessary when working long hours under the blazing sun in southern Taiwan.
We set out for a scrap metal dealer in Huang's Toyota truck. The truck is as old as he is, covered by a film of dust, and neither of its doors shut properly. I see a black rotary phone, of the kind that has been obsolete for two decades, in a plastic bag next to the driver's seat. "This is a great find we bumped into. It's now reserved for an antique dealer. We made a nice deal," Huang says. The phone was sold to Chuan Hu as scrap plastic for around NT$10, but in the antique shop it will fetch more than NT$1,000.
The scrap metal dealer is on the outskirts of Tainan, 30 minutes' drive from the city. Huang warned me not to reveal its location in case the scavengers sell their metal directly to it. Tens of thousands of dollars are at stake for each truckload.
The scrap metal dealer's grounds are shrouded in a layer of dust so thick that it turns my skin grey. Huang notices this and remarks, "It's very bad for your health, but it's part of the job."
At 9:30pm the day's work is done. Huang shows up in his new car, which is loaded with GPS equipment and other gadgets. He's dressed in a smart black shirt and matching trousers. Apparently his unglamorous job has paid off materially. "If you're willing to work hard," Huang says. The same is true for any business.
Viable options
Huang's not alone in choosing a line of work previously frowned upon by most people. With the economy in a slump and unemployment on the rise, an increasing number of young and educated people no longer mind working with ogisans and obasans (elderly working-class people). One of the scavengers who frequents Chuan Hu took up the trade when he failed to find a job after completing his military service. The young man, who didn't give his name, went through government job training at the same time. When he finally got a job one year later, he kept on scavenging part-time.
"If you don't mind the dirt and the smell, scavenging is a viable job option, and it requires no capital investment," Huang said, although, as in other businesses, spending on equipment often pays off. Using their bare hands, newcomers on the market may pick up less than NT$20 worth of materials even if they work all day. With a handcart, a scavenger can do much better, making hundreds of dollars a day when working hard. Those who aspire to be top-notch scavengers require a motor tricycle, which costs around NT$30,000. With regular clients, who give the waste collector exclusive rights to their garbage, a couple of thousand of dollars a day is guaranteed. In many parts of Taiwan, where skilled entry-level workers make roughly NT$20,000 a month, this is a very good salary.
The money used to be even better.
The "environmental protection" industry has been hit hard by the government's recycling program, initiated last year, which allows families to get rid of their recyclables when they take out their trash. Incomes have been cut by half in the industry, often leading to nasty competition among the scavengers. Chuan Hu lost two suppliers when an o-ba-san stole a piece of cardboard from the cart of an o-gi-san. The ensuing fight left both hospitalized. The o-gi-san suffered a broken arm.
"It's quite pathetic, what some of them resort to, and also quite funny. Sometimes when I'm collecting paper and a piece falls out of the bundle, a scavenger will grab it with a triumphant gesture and shout, `it's mine!' even though no one's arguing with him," Huang said. "Where average people see a piece of trash, people in this business see money."
In the past few years, the rising popularity of antique and vintage goods has added fuel to the hunt for old stuff, offering rare but lucrative opportunities to recyclers like Chuan Hu.
Huang began to notice the trend when he came across an old wood panel among pieces of plastic and paper last year. "It was inlayed with Aboriginal motifs and quite pretty, but wood is not recyclable so I put it aside, thinking I had been ripped off by the scavengers. Later a curio shop owner came around and saw the piece. I got a fabulous deal."
Antiques and other curios can fetch any price buyers are willing to pay and waste collectors dare to ask. A typical old-fashioned electric fan can usually be obtained from scavengers as scrap aluminum for just a few dollars. It then fetches hundreds of dollars in a curio shop.
Although not every waste collector is as lucky as he is, Huang thinks the business has much to offer as people will always throw things away. Anyone can make a profit, as long as "you're willing to work hard."
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