Hong Kong’s ‘cardboard grannies’ get trolley upgrade after team from Polytechnic University does redesign – and new ones come with a burglar alarm
- Team from Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation spent 10 months on project
- Cardboard grannies welcome change, but designers say there is still more work to do
Wong Yuet-han is ready to guard her new trolley with her life, and swears she will fight off any public hygiene inspector who tries to take it from her.
The 67-year-old is part of Hong Kong’s army of elderly people, mostly old women, who eke out a living by gathering cardboard scraps and polyfoam boxes to sell to recycling companies.
Her treasured trolley is an upgraded version of the common blue metal ones used by most “cardboard grannies” to move loads of up to 70kg each day.
It is a prototype designed and built by a team from the Jockey Club Design Institute for Social Innovation of Polytechnic University, as part of a 10-month social innovation project on the theme of “empathising with the elderly in the workplace”.
Wong, who was given one of four new trolleys in August for a month-long trial, said: “I love it most because it beeps when someone touches it.”
