Second-hand clothes in Cambodia

The used clothes have been imported to Cambodia for many years since Khmer Rouge had been finished.  The used clothes are from American, some parts of Europe, Korean, Japan and China. Those countries are contributing the second-hand clothes as the charity to the poor countries like Cambodia. There are many kinds of used clothes that are available all over the country in Cambodia. You can have shoes, sports, trousers, pants even underwear staff and more. Most of the buyers come from the poor who have low income such as farmer,s motor taxi drivers...Etc as they think the second-hand clothes are much cheaper than the brand new clothes and their quality is almost the same, the price of used clothes range from 0.20 $ to 2 $ in average. People  can buy them from the markets, along the street stalls, and some sellers even sell to the people's doors.

The clothes are sold in rural area of Cambodia in Svay Rieng Province. The seller buys the clothes from the city and sells out to the province

 

The clothes are sold in Phnom Penh City, Psar Kandal Market.

 

The clothes are stored in the storehouse before go to the markets, each pack weight 100 kilograms.

The Cart and Scale that Keep Some People to Survive

This morning, my mom and I collect all the broken zinc from the roof, and we replace the new. I call for the chunk buyer to buy the unused zinc. 

The 30 year old man, chunk buyer comes in front of my house with his rolling cart to buy my broken zinc. 

Well let see what he’s got in his cart, and how he makes his business.

 

Heyyyyyy, there are some bottles, cans, plastic container, papers or oven old things in kitchen, haha, this time I don’t see TV or Radio in it.   

There is one special thing that would make him work out with his business, it is a Scale. OOPs, he can pay you 600 riels equal to 13 cent in dollar for 10 cans, or bottle, but for the iron, zinc and papers, that’s just something to work with the scale. Lala, he pays you 500 riels (11 cent) for 1 kilogram of papers and for the iron and zinc maybe around 1000 riels (25 cent ). Haha, My mom gets 25000 riels (6.2 dollar) for her 25 kilograms of zinc.

Well you may wonder how much he will get back from what he buys. All the chunk that he buys he will sell out to the recycling place around town, maybe not much to earn but it can support his living, maybe not only him who will survive from this cart, also his wife and children are depending on the cart as well. I also question him some questions : 

How much does he earn for a day? 

Answer ( around 15000 riels to  30000 riels ) (3.5 US to 7.2 US)

How many kilometers does he walk with his pulling cart ? 

Answer (at least 30 kilometers)

This is what some poor people working to earn their living, walking along the street, pulling the cart, collecting the unused stuff and knocking door, then asking such a question “ Do you have chunk to sell please” and without the cart and the scale they would not be able to do such earning, that is why I call "the cart and scale that keep some people to survive"