Don’t recall if I’ve posted pictures of either of these ubiquitous phenomenon: bottle hunting and illegal documents hawking. Many homeless / retired people will spend their afternoons hunting for plastic bottles (normally involving sifting through trash cans), to take to a place like this, which gives them some money (1毛 for 1L bottles, 5毛 for 2.5L bottles). Presumably, the these people then take it to a larger recycling facility, and obtain some amount of profit simply on volume. Here’s a wider shot, showing the loaded truck.

There are also numerous ‘illegal document’ hawkers. They pass out contact information for people who can get you fake receipts (primarily used to charge more on expense accounts from work – many government jobs have such policies), and fake certificates. One thing that’s unclear is why the hawkers are (99% of the time) middle aged women, often with kids. As near as I can tell, it’s because it’s a fairly simple thing to stand outside, shout, and pass out business cards. At least you don’t need to hire someone to care for the child.