At that time, competition could become nasty among the regional factions. Wang organized meetings of the factions, and helped them establish rules about which faction covers which area. As a result, the Sichuan faction is allowed to scavenge through garbage centers, the Henan faction collects recyclables directly from residents, and the Jiangsu faction is in charge of retrieving waste cooking oil, among others.
Zhou doesn't know any powerful Anhui people in Beijing. Due to his disability and his wife's poor health - perhaps due to their unsanitary living environment - they decided that staying away from the factions is a better idea. Trying not to breach the rules, every day Zhou, wearing an artificial limb, cycles around residential areas looking for scattered recyclables. Entering communities is a breach of the rules and he also has to pay a fee to the local environment administration. The thousands of garbage centers of Beijing's residential communities have been franchised by the garbage moguls.
Life on the edge
The work of the recyclers contributed to China becoming the world's biggest market for recyclables. According to data from the National Development and Reform Commission, almost half of the copper, more than half of paper and about 30 percent of the aluminum processed in China in 2013 were imported from the US and Japan as waste.
Despite the money involved in the industry, for Zhou, it's another story. Even sending his children to school is a big issue for him.
While Zhou has a shaky grasp on written Chinese, his wife is illiterate. They have no household registration and earn little money from trash collecting, certainly not enough to pay for their children to go to school.
It was not until 2002 when the dean of a migrant worker's school heard about them and admitted all the children without asking for tuition fees, did they receive some education. But soon afterwards, the school was shut down.
In 2009, Zhou's wife, the twins and his son Bingjie went to Huangguang, Hubei Province and rented a house near a school. Bingjie was accepted into Huangguang Middle School and the twin sisters started working.
As the twins only have an elementary-school education and no work experience, it is hard to find stable, legitimate work.
First, they called each individual advertisement they could see and tried working in all sorts of migrant communities. They hung calendars, printed books, wrapped cosmetics and cleaned supermarkets. They tried making pancakes on a mobile stall but the carts were too heavy for them. When their peers shouted "Chengguan are coming!" they had to abandon their cart and run from the urban management officers.
In 2011, the twins got their first official job inspecting electronic units at a factory in Daxing district. The factory is situated in a remote area and doesn't even have heating in the winter. They worked 12 hours every day for a salary of 1,600 yuan per month.
The job brought them unbearable pain. The younger sister Bingqing developed an ache around her waist and after spending 3,000 yuan at a hospital, she decided to quit.
Her elder sister developed an eye problem, which caused her eyes to ache and she has partially lost her eyesight.
Fall of industry
Before the 2016 Spring Festival, Bingqing took a few days off and helped her father collect recyclables for the last time. A day's hard work translated into 100 yuan and Zhou Shouyi knew right then that the industry is no more.
In Zhou's view, 2003 to 2008 was the best time for trash collecting. In recent years, the government has started eliminating large recycling factories. Starting from 2015, manufacturing demand has decreased a great deal and price of recyclables has gone down.
"We have contributed our energy to this industry and now they are kicking us out," Zhou told ifeng.com
Outside the Fifth Northeast Ring Road there used to be a village full of people from Henan.
In its prime, the yard had tens of thousands of trash collectors and took on one fourth of the city's entire recycling.
A man surnamed He worked in the village for more than 10 years and witnessed the entire industry rise and fall. Bottles used to cost 15 cents each and now it's 5 cents. Fifty kilograms of glass is sold for 20 yuan nowadays. Wood is 5 cents per kilogram.
He and his workers joke, "Now we collect trash only for exercise."
Some experts are worried about the trash. As these industries exit Beijing, the quantity of trash just sitting in dumps will go up immeasurably in the city and pose an issue in the future.
The twins don't know what they can do. it's impossible to make a living collecting trash now but they have few other choices.
Right now, they are working at a fast-food restaurant. Their focus is to make enough to pay for their younger brother's tuition, which is 16,000 yuan per year. But they cannot imagine where their own children will go to school and live in the future.
