owners or to the authorities. When Eugène Poubelle introduced the rubbish bin in 1884, he was criticised by French newspapers for meddling with the ragpickers' livelihood. 20th century A 1954 report in The Manchester Guardian mentioned that some men could make as much as £25 a day collecting rags. Most used handcarts rather than a bag, and some used a pony and cart, giving out rubbing stones in exchange for the items that they collected. In 1958, a Manchester Guardian reporter accompanied rag-and-bone man John Bibby as he made his rounds through Chorlton and Stretford, near Manchester. For his handcart's load, which comprised rags, furs, shoes, scrap car parts, a settee and other furniture, Bibby made about £2. Shoddy and Mungo manufacture in West Yorkshire continued into the 1950s and the rag man would set up his cart in local streets and weigh the wool or rags brought by the women whom they then paid. By the mid-1960s the rag-and-bone trade as a whole had fallen into decline; in the 1950s, Manchester and Salford had, between them, around 60 rag merchants, but this had dropped to about 12 by 1978, many having moved into the scrap-metal trade. Local merchants blamed several factors, including demographic changes, for the decline of their industry. A 1965 newspaper report estimated that in London, only a "few hundred" rag-and-bone men remained, possibly because of competition from more specialised trades, such as corporation dustmen, and pressure from property developers to build on rag merchants' premises. In the 1980s, Hollywood star Kirk Douglas mentioned in an interview with Johnny Carson that his father was a ragman in New York and "young people nowadays don't know what is ragman." Although BBC's popular 1960s/70s television comedy Steptoe and Son helped to maintain the rag-and-bone man's status in British folklore, by the 1980s they were mostly gone. In more recent years, rising scrap metal prices have prompted their return, although most drive vans rather than horses and carts, and they announce their presence by megaphone, causing some members of the public to complain about the noise they create. 21st century Ragpicking is still widespread in Third World countries, such as in Mumbai, India, where it offers the poorest in society around the rubbish and recycling areas a chance to earn a hand-to-mouth supply of money. In 2015, the Environment Minister of India declared a national award to recognise the service