Migrant Recycling Workers Shut Down In Beijing

A relentless campaign by Beijing to present a sanitised, modern city to millions of Olympic Games visitors has led to a government shut down of scores of garbage recycling centres that provide these migrant workers with an income:

As the Olympic Games approach, the number of garbage pickers has visibly dropped across Beijing including at Qianbajia, a recycling station where about 200 households live among towering piles of plastic, building materials and scrap metals.

Qianbajia is among the dozens of urban recycling stations being shut down for the Games, effectively cutting off the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Beijing's temporary workers who eke out a living from the city's cast-offs. The workers process up to a third of Beijing's trash and have a "positive effect" on society, but most have criminal records, leave second-hand environmental pollution, and pose a health threat.

Scrap traders and recyclers, faced with a diminishing pool of rubbish collectors to do business with, grumble of lost profits and fear that their suppliers may not come back after the Games.

Rights groups and activists say the sweep has also taken in the homeless and the mentally ill, along with beggars, hawkers and prostitutes.