During the run-up to the November 12 release of my first book, Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion Dollar Trash Trade, every weekday I’m posting a new photo taken during my decade of reporting on the global waste, recycling, refurbishment, and repair trade. Today’s image displays the hands-on approach to recycling old wood products – and pulling nails! – used in China’s thousands of wood recycling businesses. Click the image for an enlargement.
There are two problems associated with recycling wood. The first is obtaining it: old roof beams and hardwood floors are valuable, but it’s expensive to pull them out of old buildings, even during demolitions. The second is ridding the wood of nails and other “contaminants” before it can be sanded into new, re-usable, and re-marketable products. In this 2007 photo, a husband and wife team at a Wuxi wood recycling business (owned by another of their relatives) use pliers to pull nails from old shipping pallets before the planks are sent for sanding. It’s tedious and dangerous work – stray nails are common on the ground, and safety boots are uncommon (note the wife wears sandals) – but it’s a business that anybody with a pliers and a work ethic can start. Thus, where there are demolitions and pallets – namely, any city in China – there’s always guaranteed to be two or three wood recyclers (at least) competing for the wood.
Previous ‘Scenes from a Junkyard Planet’ can be found here.