Living day by day: Uncle Lim arranging cardboard he collected outside a shop in Kuala Lumpur.
KUALA LUMPUR: Every morning, just after dawn, a wiry old man pushes a squeaky trolley through the back alleys and market lanes in the heart of the city.
He’s known as Uncle Lim to neighbourhood hawkers and cleaners, most of whom nod at him as he passes by. His back is slightly hunched, hands calloused, eyes steady but distant.
At 70, his world is made up of collecting cardboard, plastic bottles, aluminium cans, and the weather.
“I just hope it doesn’t rain,” he said.
“Raining means the cardboard will be wet. Cannot sell. Means no money. No cash, no lunch.”
Uncle Lim’s day begins at daybreak. With a slow pace, he moves from bin to bin, alley to alley, collecting anything recyclable – plastic bottles, aluminium cans, cardboard boxes flattened and stacked like fragile gold.
He doesn’t stop until around 1pm, when he sits down for his one meal of the day – mixed rice, the most affordable food he can find.
He worked most of his life with timber, first as a teenage lumberjack, felling trees deep in the forest, then later as a sawmill labourer.
More than 40 years of gruelling labour has left his body tired, his joints stiff, and his spirit bent, not broken, but weighed down.
Twelve years ago, he could no longer keep up with the physical toll of the timber industry.
With no pension and no safety net, Uncle Lim turned to the streets, collecting recyclables.
He has no family of his own. He sleeps in a small, makeshift room in a relative’s home, paying RM200 a month for shelter and utilities.
When asked how long he plans to keep doing this, he simply shrugged and muttered: “As long as I can walk. What else to do?”
He claimed to have applied for government aid four times, but nothing came through.
On a good day, Uncle Lim earns enough to eat and save a little towards rent. On bad days, he may not eat at all.
“But I don’t think about tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow is another rain or shine.”
In another part of the city, it was close to midnight, and a frail Nasir Hamidon quietly collected discarded cardboard from a convenience store in Cheras and loaded them into his beaten-up taxi.
Nasir, 68, has a day job as a taxi driver, but at night, he collects cardboard for extra income.
“Since e-hailing came along, driving a taxi is no longer lucrative. Most rides I get would cost between RM5 and RM10,” he said.
“If I am lucky, I can make RM50 a day. Otherwise, I barely make RM30.
“I am old and not physically able to venture out into the city for long haul rides,” he said.
He said selling cardboard and other recyclables would earn him an extra RM20, depending on what he collects.
“My only son died, and I now have to support my wife and myself. We don’t have savings or a pension to fall back on. We still have to find ways to make enough for rental at a PPR unit,” he said.
“I think I will have to do this until the end of my life, but I hope I outlive my wife because she wouldn’t have the financial resources to make ends meet,” he added.
