Cardboard collectors struggle as prices fall amid strike by waste paper exporters

Some shop owners notice slowdown in clearing of paper waste, but individual collectors continue to pick up used boxes for resale

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An 89-year-old woman collects used cardboard in Causeway Bay. Photo: Denise Tsang

Published: 2:30pm, 17 Sep 2017Updated: 1:20pm, 20 Sep 2017

Amid a week-long strike by Hong Kong’s waste paper exporters, an 89-year-old grandmother, who has collected used cardboard in Causeway Bay for years, continued with her daily “job” on Saturday as she tried to make ends meet despite a price slump.

The industrial action by local firms was a response to a shift in mainland policy, announced in July, with the aim of banning imports of 24 types of polluting “foreign rubbish” by the end of the year. About 1,000 recycling plants across the mainland failed to get a permit to bring in foreign waste, causing a logjam of stock in Hong Kong.

The elderly cardboard collector, who calls herself “por por” (Cantonese for “granny”), said she had to help make a living by selling what she picked up from shops in the tourist district. She lives with her son in a subdivided flat that they rent for HK$6,000 a month.

Resting outside a noodle shop with three boxes of cardboard piled about as high as her head, the hunchbacked old woman said she was not discouraged by the drop in recycled cardboard prices.

Watch: Mountain of waste paper piles up in Tsuen Wan

The shop she sells cardboard to in Causeway Bay now pays only HK$0.50 per kg, down from HK$0.70 earlier this week, when exporters first warned of their strike.

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