Report on Why Elderly People Pick Up Cardboard in South Korea

The Korea Herald has an article published on why elderly people can often be seen pulling carts and picking up cardboard in South Korea:

When the temperature dropped to minus 7 degrees Celsius in mid-February, Lee Deok-ja, 74, was dragging her handcart around Deungchon-dong, western Seoul, picking up cardboard. 

It was about 12:30 p.m. and her handcart was empty. Lee said she had already been to the junk shop three times that day. Instead of filling up the handcart — which appears to weigh more than 40 kilograms when empty — the petite lady chooses to go to a junk shop several times a day and fill her cart little by little. 

“Every time I go there, I get 1,000 won (90 cents), 2,000 won or 3,000 won. That’s how I earn 10,000 won to 15,000 won a day,” she said. The nation’s minimum hourly wage this year is 8,720 won.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but the common element on why they pick up cardboard is that they do it to supplement the national pension check they receive each month. It is very difficult to survive on just the pension check and many kids supplement their elderly parent’s income. If an elderly person does not have kids who give them money they end of doing low skilled job as picking up cardboard to supplement their pension.