The plight of “cardboard grannies” seen daily in the streets of Sai Kung has been spotlighted by a concern group called Waste Picker Platform. These elderly women — the scavengers are 80% female, the group said — earn an average of only $716 a month by selling cardboard and other recyclable scraps.
The group compared this to the median cost of renting a room in a subdivided flat put at $4500 by a 2016 survey. Many of these forsaken women, consequently, sleep rough.
Waste Picker Platform surveyed 505 street scavengers and has published a report. Volunteer Chan Siu-ming said many of these elderly people reported being hassled by the uniforms of the Food and Environmental Health Department and members of the public. Every day residents in Sai Kung see scavengers picking through rubbish bins, trundling carts along the streets, compiling their cardboard and other scraps in the central square near the Banyan Tree and taking their collection to the pink truck by the Tin Hau Temple. BUZZ readers will recall the awful tragedy of the old man known for scavenging who died alone in the basement of an abandoned house on Clearwater Bay Road.
The group estimated about 2900 people work the streets in this way in Hong Kong. Collectors pick up an average of 35 kg of cardboard in each session and cart it to recyclers, earning only $716 a month on average. Eighty-two per cent were over 60. One woman was still on the streets at 96.
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