Recycling worker's 'treasure hunting' lures millions online

When he started shooting short videos about waste recycling in 2019, Liu Anan had never thought they would amass over 15 million followers online.

Liu, from the city of Handan in north China's Hebei Province, shares his daily findings at a recycling station in his videos, which range from toys and bottles to occasional expensive watches and pieces of jade.

In addition to the "treasure hunting," his content often carries an inspiring message of an ordinary man with a humble job having a confident and upbeat attitude toward life.

"The job of waste recycling can be dirty and tiring, but this is life, an ordinary person's life," the 29-year-old said in a video with over 1 million views pinned at the top of his TikTok-like Douyin homepage. "Moreover, it's a happy process to discover something unexpected."

Liu's recycling career and online fame both came unexpectedly.

Starting work after graduating from middle school, Liu had been a truck driver, street vendor and part-time worker before he landed on waste recycling in 2019, following the path of his parents, who have been in the industry for over 30 years, and his two uncles.

However, unlike the elders who see their job merely as waste collectors, Liu considers it more as resource recycling. In his Douyin profile, he jokingly introduced himself as the "CEO and Executive President of Resource Recycling, Greater China."

"It's a process of turning trash to treasure, and in recent years, paper manufacturers have a huge demand for waste cartons," Liu said.

As a short video consumer himself, Liu thought he could also use videos to share his life as a recycling worker, an occupation different from many of his peers.

However, the venture had a bumpy start. He gained few views at the beginning and struggled with video editing. Sometimes the videos he made with well-prepared scripts would get fewer views than random shots.

Despite disappointments, he carried on. "As a young man, I wanted to try something different from my parents' generation," Liu said.

Gradually, he discovered people like videos about the interesting items that he retrieved from the waste, such as jade, necklaces, and calligraphy works. Followers grew over time, and he became more passionate about the cause.

To give the videos more appeal, Liu also created catchy verses for the voiceover. So far he has created over 200 such verses.

"To satisfy my fans, I think I almost made myself a poet," Liu said.

The videos are well-received by viewers. "I love your videos, they're fun and inspiring," reads one comment by "Huizi" on Douyin. "I wish your positivity could reach everyone who is working hard," reads another comment on Kuaishou, also a short-video platform.

With his growing influence, Liu also helped his hometown promote the local ceramics culture online.

"I'm still young and I need to continue to try, learn and breakthrough myself," Liu said. "Young people should work as hard as possible to achieve our dreams."