Beijing’s ‘scrap communities’ threatened by urban sprawl

Some migrant communities, such as in Dongxiaokou in the northern suburbs of Beijing, have been living where they are for several decades, and are specialized in recycling and selling scrap from the capital’s waste.

These communities, coming mostly from poor areas overlooked by the country’s rapid economic development, have organized themselves with efficient logistic systems extending from the waste ground to the city center, and by attributing to each family a different type of scrap material from which it can make a living. They are now threatened with relocation by Beijing’s urban expansion, and as they lack residence permits, will be forced to move out to further dumping grounds or back to their original provinces.