Beijing recyclers discarded in Games security sweep

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By Ian Ransom

BEIJING (Reuters) - Liu Yang is among tens of thousands ofmigrant workers who scour Beijing bins for sellable scraps. Buthe won't be recycling any trash this August as Beijing'srubbish pickers are being pushed out of town.

A relentless campaign by Beijing to present a sanitized,modern city to millions of Olympic Games visitors has led to agovernment shut down of scores of rubbish recycling centresthat provide these migrant workers with an income.

As the Olympic Games approach, the number of rubbishpickers has visibly dropped across Beijing including atQianbajia, a recycling station where about 200 households liveamong towering piles of plastic, building materials and scrapmetals.

Almost half of the tenants have left for home provinces.Yang and his young family are still hoping to stay in the dankroom next to reeking piles of trash where they have made ahome.

"The rent is cheap here," said Liu breezily, picking up hisone-year-old daughter as a three-wheeled cart loaded withcardboard squeezed by in the muddy alley outside his house.

Qianbajia is among the dozens of urban recycling stationsbeing shut down for the Games, effectively cutting off thelivelihoods of tens of thousands of Beijing's temporary workerswho eke out a living from the city's cast-offs.

Most of the city's more than 170,000 rubbish collectorswill have left before the August 8 opening ceremony -- anecessary measure to guarantee the health and safety of Gamesvisitors, according to Wang Weiping, a Beijing governmentadvisor.

Wang, one of Beijing's foremost experts on the city'srecycling industry, submitted a report recommending officials"convince" the collectors to return to their home provinces forthe duration of the Olympics.

The workers process up to a third of Beijing's trash andhave a "positive effect" on society, but most have criminalrecords, leave second-hand environmental pollution, and pose ahealth threat, Wang said.

"According to our studies, more than 70 percent havecontracted infectious diseases, such as dysentery, hepatitisand typhoid, and can easily infect others in the city," Wangsaid.

"I hope these people can temporarily sacrifice theirinterests and go home and then come back after the Olympics ...Their losses won't be that great."

SHRILL CALL

The call to sacrifice individual interests has becomeincreasingly shrill in the months leading up to the four-yearsporting extravaganza.

It will see Beijing drivers give up their cars on alternatedays from July 20 to improve air quality and unclog roads, andpoor farmers in neighbouring Hebei province surrender water tobolster the capital's stocks in case of shortages.

Scrap traders and recyclers, faced with a diminishing poolof rubbish collectors to do business with, grumble of lostprofits and fear that their suppliers may not come back afterthe Games.

"How can you sell, if you've got nothing to buy?" said WangYuping, a small scrap trader near one of Beijing's Olympicsoccer venues.

"There's no talk of compensation. We're just common people.What good would complaining do?" she asked.

Security authorities in Beijing, which expects half amillion foreign visitors and about 30,000 journalists duringthe Games period, have stepped up efforts to ensure those withcomplaints are kept well out of the public eye.

"There is a large scale mobilization to put under controland monitor every individual deemed to be a potential threat,whether that be convicted felons, petitioners, or peopleentangled in litigation," said Nicholas Bequelin of HumanRights Watch.

"All sorts of vulnerable people, such as recyclers,unfortunately fall within this wide net," Bequelin said.

Rights groups and activists say the sweep has also taken inthe homeless and the mentally ill, along with beggars, hawkersand prostitutes.

Zhang Shihe, a Beijing blogger, documented the fate ofabout 30 homeless people who lived in cobbled-together sheltersnear Tiananmen Square, and survived on pocket change fromselling plastic bottles foraged from bins around the vastplaza.

"The authorities pulled down their homes on three separateoccasions this year," Zhang said.

Barred from returning to Tiananmen to collect scrap, theywere now scattered around Beijing's outer suburbs, somesurviving on the charity of Chinese Internet users, Zhang said.

The Olympic security crackdown is no surprise to Zhang, whosaw the homeless shoo-ed from the city centre during theNational People's Congress in March, the annual meeting ofChina's rubber-stamp parliament.

As swift and ruthless as the campaigns may be, they neverlast much longer than after the last V.I.P. leaves town, Zhangsaid.

"This government loves face ... They clean up the city towelcome the guests. Once the guests are gone, who has time tokeep managing this problem?"

"The homeless will come back to collect bottles atTiananmen once the Olympics are over," Zhang said.

Back in Qianbajia, Liu said his wife would also return fromher family's farm in about two months and rejoin him in thecity.

He was neither angry nor disappointed with the authorities,who have dubbed the Games the "People's Olympics".

"It would be nice if she could be here during the Games...

but what can I say?" he shrugged.

"We're just used to it."

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road toBeijing" at http://www.reuters.com/news/sports/2008olympics;and see our blog at http://blogs.reuters.com/china)