[This post aside – Shanghai Scrap is officially on hiatus through the first week of April.] I must admit: when I chose the name Shanghai Scrap for this blog it did not occur to me that scrap traders from, say, Lagos to, say, Linyi would look at the name and automatically assume that, a) I…
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A Nine Dragons Memory
Posted on Author AdamPosted in Appreciations and Recommendations, Business and Trade, Environment, Scrap8 Replies
A very enthusiastic recommendation for Evan Osnos’s excellent profile of Cheung Yan and the Nine Dragons Paper empire in the March 30 issue of the New Yorker. Spectacular stuff. Now, Cheung’s name may not ring a bell, but her reputation, might: she was, until recently, the self-made Trash Queen, the richest woman in China, and…
The Two Cultures, Recycling Edition
Here’s something that I’ve learned: the world has two cultures of recycling. In the developed world (Europe and North America, in particular), recycling is a moral act, done – primarily – as expatiation for consumption. Little to no consideration is given to the cost of recycling; and, on those rare occasions when economics enter the…
US scrap dealers are hereby stimulated (by China)
Shanghai Scrap is withholding comment on Barack Obama’s economic stimulus in favor of compelling anecdotal evidence that – while the US Congress debates how to stimulate anything – the Chinese government is stimulating the US scrap industry. Here’s the deal: Late last year, with little notice, China’s State Reserve Bureau announced that – in an…
Scrap Spot Prices – Chinese New Year, Shanghai, Edition.
Over the last week I’ve noticed that Shanghai’s army of (some say) 100,000 scrap peddlers have been unusually busy. The piles of cardboard on the streets, and on the backs of bicycles are noticeably larger; the bags full of cans and bottles are stuffed noticeably tighter. Past experience has taught me that this is a…
Recycling Isn’t So Green, After All
This evening (Shanghai time) I appeared on Today with Pat Kenny, broadcast by RTÉ 1 in Dublin (I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as it’s available), to discuss the collapse of the international scrap recycling markets over the last three months, and the negative effect that the collapse has had on municipal…
No wonder Chinese banks are so profitable.
I’ve spent more of my life than I should admit devoted to the Chinese recycling trade and its odd and amazing offshoots. Radioactive X-ray machine processing? Seen it! Diaper recycling? Heard of it! The Big Dumb Recycling Machine? Documented it! But before Monday night, and a last minute search for an ATM, I’d never seen…
Scrap Television
I’m waist deep in a project that’s rising just as fast I as I can keep up, so posting is a bit light these last couple of days. Fortunately, in the last half hour my neighbors invited someone to jackhammer their walls, and so – while I try to find an alternative work location –…
For Scrap Geeks Only: Copper, or no Copper?
I’m not kidding, either: unless you know how to grade a load of mixed non-ferrous scrap metal, this post really isn’t going to be of much interest.
Daily Prosperity
Upon first examination, the wallpaper pattern shown below appears to be little more than a modern, perhaps psychedelic, update of a traditional Chinese paper cut (click here, for traditional examples). But closer examination reveals something more subtle, and more playful: Though not obvious in this photo, there is a third key layer to this work:…