China generates about 1.2 kg of waste per person per day, and a sizable share of it is now being fed into smart recycling machines in residential compounds by young people cashing in. Aihuishou has installed more than 60,000 recycling machines in 40 cities nationwide, with 9,493 units in Beijing alone; Wuhan's "Aifenlei" has deployed over 2,500, Jinan's "Dabashou" operates more than 4,000 collection points, and Shenzhen's "Shen i Recycling" has over 5,400. These machines price everything uniformly by weight (about 0.6 yuan/kg): scan a code to open the bin, weigh and settle, and withdraw the balance — turning selling scrap into a transaction you can complete on a stroll downstairs.

Key points

  • Aihuishou has deployed over 60,000 recycling machines across 40 cities, with 9,493 units in Beijing alone
  • Local recycling bins such as Wuhan's "Aifenlei," Jinan's "Dabashou," and Shenzhen's "Shen i Recycling" each number in the thousands
  • Aihuishou staff say the machine business mainly earns from sorting and reselling to downstream buyers plus government subsidies for environmental equipment, and is not yet broadly profitable

In the past, household waste was usually picked over by scavengers before heading to the incinerator. Now smart devices have been inserted into the middle of that chain: they work like vending machines in reverse, with cameras inside identifying recyclables and a weighing device at the bottom calculating cash back. The rules are simple enough that things traditional scrap stations refuse — bubble wrap, plush toys — can still be sold. The tricks young people have worked out: cans and plastic bottles aren't worth it, since five bags might fetch only 1.1 yuan; old books, old clothes, and broken appliances weigh the most. Appliances and secondhand clothing thus have a more convenient destination than piling up in the corridor.

This participation is likened in the article to a "search, fight, extract" game: first "search" for recyclables in your home, commute route, and office; then unpack, fold, and stomp bottles flat like managing inventory to pack in the highest density of loot; along the way you may run into the elderly men and women who have long scavenged in the compound — falling trash-bin hauls have created a subtle rivalry between the two sides; finally you scan and drop at the machine, get paid, and complete a safe extraction. The whole process has no failure penalty, only the instant positive feedback of money arriving.

This trend also tracks a shift in how young people view "junk." Picking up furniture by the roadside and using it after disinfecting, hunting for old goods at the Daliushu market and ghost markets, and browsing markets at secondhand stores like Santu and Yike are all extensions of the same logic. Idle items that can go on Xianyu still go there; worn-out things that won't sell go into the recycling machine, forming a complete disposal sequence from scavenging to resale to recycling.

Sustainability remains in question. Aihuishou's latest quarterly report did not separately disclose the profitability of its recycling machines, and earlier reports said only that the smart recycling machine business in Shanghai had become profitable overall. Staff at the China International Fair for Trade in Services said the machines are "not that profitable yet," with revenue mainly from two sources: sorting recyclables and shipping them to downstream companies for reuse to earn a margin, and government subsidies for environmental recycling equipment. For the old-clothing recycling and textile regeneration industry, this means the expansion of front-end recycling machines has yet to escape its dual dependence on policy subsidies and downstream sorting margins.

Source: Young People Addicted to Selling Scrap Are "Feeding" Recycling Machines Sprouting Everywhere · Originally published 2026-09-29