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 informal process.