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 we round-out a week of scrapping families with a Chinese family that recycles American Christmas tree lights for a living.
This 2011 image shows Raymond Li (far left) and members of his family at a Christmas tree light recycling factory capable of handling 1 million pounds of the pesky, unwanted strands per year (my video of how Chrismast lights are recycled is available at the Atlantic). This business, like most Chinese scrap businesses, started modestly at home two decades ago. Today it’s a multi-million dollar venture that sends Raymond to the US several times per year in search of American scrap to feed it. His wife, Yao Yei, on the right, is an equal in the business (she might say more than equal), and one reason that Raymond is comfortable traveling away from it so often. To her left is Cousin Yao, the proud college-educated engineer who designed the company’s recycling line. In Junkyard Planet, I tell their story in detail. It’s unique on many levels – and yet, as a family that made its riches on junk and still works together, they’re one of the oldest, and most common success stories in the modern history of capitalism.
Previous ‘Scenes from a Junkyard Planet’ can be found here.