The garbage cleared from the old man's house.[Photo from Sina Weibo]

Hoarder has four tons of trash in home

A former sanitation worker in Yinbin, Sichuan province, who'd attempted to make a living by collecting trash, took his passion for collecting trash too far, accumulating over four tons of garbage in his own home, newssc.org reported.

Twenty social workers from a local community, together with some volunteers who resided nearby, took 12 hours to clean up the man's home, changing shifts every 30 minutes to take a breather. Three garbage trucks were filled with the garbage.

"He kept everything, including bottles and jars, worn-out shoes, plastic bags and piles of ragged clothes", said one of the social workers. "The garbage has been stacked high to the top of the roof and it smells bad", he added.

According to the report, the man's neighbors tried to communicate with him many times, but to no avail, and had no choice but to call community workers to deal with the mess.

"He wanders around the neighborhood every day and picks up trash every time he has a chance," said one of his neighbors, who added the ex-sanitation worker did not discriminate against any sort of garbage and even went for cigarette butts or even more disgusting items.

However, the 62-year-old trash collector said that collecting trash was his only means of supporting his family. His wife suffers from epilepsy and their adopted daughter was born blind and can't find a job.

When asked why he stocked up on so much garbage instead of selling it, he said he was waiting to sell it at a good price.

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