Recycled/recycling portal

A metal door is laid over this community waste recycler's scale to enable its users to weigh massive bags of styrofoam, plastic bottles, reams of cardboard, and any other large-but-light object. Were it not for the inflexible door, the objects would touch the ground, making them impossible to accurately measure.

The individual's name, the quantity of recycled material they've broght, and the amount they were paid based upon day's market price is recorded in the ledger resting upon the scale.

Interesting to glimpse this next step in urban China's formidable informal recycling process - the follow-up to the legions walking from one municipal trash bin to another, deftly employing their own preferred sets of tools (or simply using their hands) in their search for their (paid) contributions to the city's recycling stream.

Secondhand, secondfoot

Fifteen kuai (US $2.50) gets you installed one lightly used replacement heel. Would you only replace one heel, though? Consider that option against buying a new set of shoes, and the calcuations customers make as they compare potential embarrassment at not investing in a new pair of shoes against potential savings of replacing one heel. There's also the comfort factor of non-matching heels, leading to an awkward gait (leading to a discovery of a non-original heel, and the previous calculation).

Is it pairs that good things come in?

Discarded to carted

The value of a material and resource varies greatly across contexts. What is saved around you, and through what means? Pushed/pulled carts do a lot of the heavy lifting in metropolitan Chongqing for most materials except plastic beverage bottles, which most often fall within the domain of a person carrying a bag. Consider how this cart of to-be-repurposed/recycled material influences the perspectives of those around it and what they consider "valuable" - waste as just something in the incorrect place/hands.

Somewhat related, as a test I recently left a plastic bottle resting on top of a garbage can to see how long it would sit there before being plucked by a passerby. Before I could sit down at a bench no more than 15 feet away to observe, it had vanished. Nice to bear witness to such a smoothly functioning yet informal process.

Receptacle Placement

Consider this momentary snapshot in terms of the larger process, and what had to be noticed/reported (and by/to whom) before this new trashcan is placed.

Before: The "requisite" (as in, "beyond acceptable/sufficiently noticable/embarrassing) amount of litter observed by a sufficiently concerned person of sufficient influence reported to the "right" municipal bureau.

After: Notifying of the neighborhood's municipal waste collection staff of the need to monitor and manage these new trashcans. The discovery of these new trashcans by the neighborhood's informal recyclable collectors who will modify their daily route to check these new receptacles for plastic bottles and other resellable materials.

Consider how this process could potentially be simplified. In whose interest it is that it is this complicated, and who would benefit from its simplification?

Discharge, dispose

Consider why trashcans are equipped for battery disposal in a given context. These sorts of trashcans are sprinkled (seemingly) randomly throughout Chongqing - certain public squares, the airport, etc. Is this calculated inconsisntency, or are certain contexts more recognized users of disposable batteries than others.

Incidentally, I've never seen a waste collector (formal or informal) check this battery disposal element - nor is it obvious how to access it.

On an unrelated note, expended disposable batteries are becoming a widespread and pernicious waste in rural Myanmar - intriguing to see something that rural dwellers have not yet figured out how to repurpose, and consider how/whether they will be able to.

Bottle storage

While a clever way of storing bottles on the parts of the students to turn in for money later, there is also latent/underutilized information  sitting here for local convenience store owners, restaurants (on a micro level), and beverage companies (on a macro level) to take advantage of. The beverage preferences of students who practice this method of saving bottles are on display for all to see. All one needs to pick out a given bottle is its distinctive cap and/or bottom of the container so that it may be more easily identified from the viewed angle.

On a different note - what implications does this have for grate design? What would make for easier bottle input/removal?

Finally, potential abounds for students to express themselves by creating public/outward-facing "pictures" out of bottles stuck into the grate in a particular pattern. Clearly for these students expressing that they are recycling is not something to be ashamed of or to try and conceal - so why not make it even more colorful and entertaining for all passerby? It might even encourage others to start recycling themselves.

One square inch: Pansodan Bridge's vendors

The sidewalk adjacent to an elevated overpass in downtown Yangon is full of examples of informal business (as is the case with most sidewalks in Yangon). The vendors that have taken up this covered portion of Pansodan Bridge take advantage of the shade and protection from the elements provided by the covered sidewalk, as well as the railing that separates the sidewalk from the road. 

In this first example, the potential for a 50-foot drop on to the train tracks below makes the goods display technique for these bananas somewhat risky.

This walkway-based vendor located nearby the above bananas does not push her luck as far. She sells fried snacks, with her kit representing the quintessentially pared-down carry of a mobile vendor in Yangon:

- One stool for displaying goods, upon which is placed the metal platter favored by numerous mobile vendors across Yangon. 

- One stool for sitting upon, which has been extensively repaired using a combination of packing tape, wood, plastic twine, and newspaper).

- One shorter plastic stool, upon which is placed:

- A plastic basket, directly in front of her for easy access to plastic bags for wrapping customers' purchases and, beneath that, some food and drink for personal use. The basket also contains this microenterprise's "cash register" - a small bag filled with money for making change and storing the day's revenue (another reason to keep it within arm's reach at all times).

The young boy, who co-runs the papaya and watermelon operation with his mother, uses the ledge of the walkway's railing to balance metal platters crowded with fruit. While the fall is less serious than the bananas' potential plummet, to have one metal platter tip over would eliminate a significant share of inventory - along with any hope of profit for the day. 

Here, a customer takes notice, approaches, and purchases some papaya.

Down the railing a bit from the papaya and watermelon one notices a creative pineapple goods display solution. This vendor has capitalized upon the ridges cut within each fruit to remove the inedible exterior "eyes" to build miniature structures for displaying his goods. Also, note the level of trust implicit in placing the "cash register" (here, the recycled bottom half of a discarded one-liter water bottle) in such close reach of customers (or those with less pure intentions).

The Carry: Recyclables, Yangon + Mandalay

 

This 61 year old man collects plastic packaging cord from various stores near his home outside of downtown Yangon during the week. After having filled several bags, he rides a Hilux truck-ferry ("linecar") into downtown to walk around the largest market (Thein Gyi Market), selling the packaging cord to various merchants. He charges ten kyat per length of cord (850 kyat equal one US $). He says he used to make the trip more often, but that since he has gotten older, work has become more challenging and he has had to rely more upon his grown children to support him.


This employee of a recycling collection shop has gathered together enough material to justify the trip on the commuter train out to the suburbs, where a large recycling facility will pay him handsomely for his cargo.

Finally, I didn't have the chance to speak with this man at length as he was busy loading cargo on to the train upon which I was a passenger. Bound for Mandalay, this was taken in an upcountry town several hours' from the city. Besides cardboard, other Mandalay-bound cargo included coal, straw baskets, bamboo, garlic, and even some sewing machines.

Good for mouth/heart/constraints

The sign on the side of this Bangkok foodcart advertises its "right (for your) mouth, right (for your) heart" crispy (Halal!) non-pork sausage. Space and weight constraints coupled with costly (both monetarily and spatially) combustible fuel, this "arched" grill doubles productivity while halving fuel consumption. Also space-capitalizing is the repurposed Pocari Sweat bottle hung and used as a grease catcher (as the grease is also "recycled").

Design vs. mosquitoes: Two approaches

Two takes on the same design challenge: how to contain mosquito-repelling "incense" coils. Oftentimes the cheap holders included with mosquito coils are flimsy and inadequate for prolonged use, and sturdier substitutes must be found or developed. Both approaches feature repurposed/recycled components. Fairly obvious with the coconut, but the white-painted metal container needs a closer look. Each corner has a recycled metal nut attached to serve as a "foot", while the design within the squares (meant for both stability/durability and aesthetic points) are repurposed metal washers welded to one another.

Yet another solution: http://squareinchanthro.com/coil-hang-method