Tourism brings more trash to remote village, but 90-year-old man enjoys it

CHANGSHA - Hauling garbage has become Shi Chengfu's hobby. The more he carries, the happier he is. For the past half-century, the shoulder pole was the 90-year-old Shi's primary tool for carrying heavy loads. These days, with an influx of tourists - and their trash - to his family's restaurant, he now uses the pole to transport rubbish bins to a nearby disposal site.

Shi's home village, Shibadong, Hunan province, is home to many ethnic Miao people, and its scarcity of arable land and water is typical of the area.

When he was in his 20s, Shi had to collect ash rock in the mountains and carry it to town to sell as fertilizer. At daybreak, he would carry two baskets of the ash using a shoulder pole, walk hours on the narrow road along a cliff's edge, and exchange the ash for a bag of rice. He usually didn't return home until after 7 pm. As soon as he finished eating, he would go back to the mine tunnels in the dark to dig more ash for the next day.