Posted on 11/17/2007 6:48:22 PM PST by JACKRUSSELL
A town in southern China is proving that where there's muck, there's gold and silver.
In one of the most extreme signs of China's modern grasp of entrepreneurial possibilities, gold panners are striking deals with jewellery factories to buy the contents of their septic tanks.
The price of precious metals has soared to such record highs on the world's markets that sifting the tanks' contents for scrapings and offcuts has become a profitable business.
A reporter from a Chinese newspaper found a new breed of waste collectors touring the jewellery factories near Daluotang, a township near the city of Guangzhou.
They told him that small processing factories had discovered gold and silver filings in the septic tanks that had either washed off workers' hands and faces or been ingested accidentally.
The collectors were paid to deliver the contents of septic tanks from factories and dormitory compounds. Processors would then sift, pan and finally recycle the tanks.
Contracts depended on the volume of effluent — one building sold the rights to its sewage for 140,000 yuan a year (about £9,000). A smaller tank fetched 40,000 yuan (£2,500).
"The factories watch over the gold powder produced at each stage of their processing," one man said. "Once, I was carrying some waste water for a boss here, I spilled a little and he began to shout at me for the waste."
Another said: "Because compounds here have mostly been rented out to gold factory workers, people believe the gold and silver powder that gets stuck to hair, skin or even in their stomach eventually settles in the septic tank."
China is profiting from its entrance into a global but uncertain trading system.
The price of precious metals has risen as investors seek a safe haven from the global credit crisis and the long-term fall in the value of the dollar. Gold is trading at nearly £385 an ounce, its highest level since 1980.
like I said before and i will say again: The chinese are a bunch of filthy pigs.
“pi ing yu”
ROR!
Hi Fu Ni Gai
I bought rots of jewelry when I was in China a few weeks ago. Do you think it’s made from....
No $hit?
It should have been Pin Ging Yu...
Pu Goo Gia Pan?
“Pu Goo Gia Pan?”
Ew!
Seriously, we should all be aware that recycled precious metals like gold, silver and platinum have the potential to be radioactive. Watch out for Chinese jewelry!
Hey Ruy,where did your dad clean out chicken coops. I was a helper on a chicken farm as a kid and cleaned out a few myself.
***Hey Ruy,where did your dad clean out chicken coops.***
Nw Ark. They wern’t coops. They were houses that held between ten thousand and forty thousand chickens. And stink! Wow!
I worked in south Jersey in coops that held 14 thousand birds. Manure was about 30 inches deep (after about 3 years or so)The methane would burn your eyes. That stuff was gold to the local farmers!
Harry King of Ankh-Morpork has a real life counterpart!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.