'Treasure' hunt

The trend of reusing secondhand goods is picking up in the country, He Qi reports in Shanghai.

Since summer, 26-year-old Shanghai resident Chen Jiaorong has been walking along Julu Road in Shanghai's downtown area once or twice a week, looking around and picking up "garbage".

After her action was noticed online, she was described by others as a "stooper".While seemingly affected by a culture of collecting abandoned items in some foreign countries, Chen has her own approach -she picks used goods to help find suitable new owners for some items and decorates her rented apartment with others.

Abandoned furniture, mattresses, tableware, electric scooters, clothing and decorations make the list of Chen's "collection".When she spots such unused goods, she puts a pair of eyeball-shaped stickers on them before publishing notes on her social media accounts, and guiding others to pick them up from the streets.

Chen says usually someone comes to collect within a few hours of her posting about them, because the goods are removed as trash after cleaners start to work on the roads.

"I've seen videos of garbage disposal, like sofas that are taken to sites and smashed into pieces. I've thought, 'What a pity!'" said Chen, who graduated from University College London.

"I imagine these abandoned goods on the roadside as 'living creatures', which have vitality but are not being fully used. They wait for someone to take them. I feel sorry for those goods, so I put the stickers on them," Chen added.