5-6-2023 (HONG KONG) A Chinese blogger has gone viral after posting a video on social media platform Xiaohongshu, or “Little Red Book”, showing that picking up trash in wealthy neighbourhoods can be a profitable venture. The video, titled “Picking up money in a wealthy area of Hong Kong, so easy!”, was posted on May 25 and has since garnered over 2,400 likes and 70 comments.
The blogger, who goes by the handle jin jin chao o cai and has over 2,700 followers, travels to Clear Water Bay in Hong Kong’s New Territories, where he finds a lot of “cashable” rubbish while rummaging through dumpsters. He estimates that the rubbish he came across could be sold for HK$1,500 (S$258).
In the same video, the blogger also suggests that people should consider working as security guards for people who live in the city’s luxury housing, as such a job pays at least HK$20,000 a month, and workers don’t have to be afraid of the weather.
However, the video has raised concerns that taking discarded items from rubbish dumps in Hong Kong could violate the law. According to Hong Kong’s Public Cleansing and Prevention of Nuisances Regulation, “No person shall, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, rake, pick over or grub in any waste deposited in any place or remove or scatter any waste so deposited. Any breach of this may result in a fine.”
The blogger, who is 32 years old and lives in Shenzhen, a city in southern China’s Guangdong province, shares mainly life hacks, cheap deals and funny anecdotes about life on his profile. While the video has been reported by some Hong Kong media outlets, it has also attracted attention for its promotion of dumpster diving in the city’s affluent areas.
