( CNN ) -- Every morning Kong Kit Tam goes on a 7 a.m. walk around his neighborhood - not for exercise , but for money . Tam is a paper scavenger . His currency is waste paper . For the past three years , he has dug into dirty garbage cans to pull out old newsprint and has shuffled through dimly-lit back alleys to haul out used cardboard boxes . An empty carton of Marlboro cigarettes , a torn envelope for an electricity bill and a pink pastry box get stuffed into his shoulder bag today . He sells it all to a recycler for money . `` Each month I might earn $ 100 or $ 200 or $ 300 Hong Kong dollars , '' Tam says . That 's $ 12 to $ 36 U.S. dollars and is his only source of income . The short , rumpled 50-year old talks through a slight smile but his circumstances are no joke . `` I never thought that I would be doing this , '' Tam admits . `` I do it to survive , it 's my livelihood . '' Tam 's life stands in stark contrast to a Hong Kong more famous for its iconic skyline and glitzy high life as an Asian hub for global financial firms . A Hong Kong government report released last month revealed that the city 's wealth gap is the widest in the developed world . Tam is a prime example of that other extreme . And he is not the only one . `` There are an estimated 10,000 people who are recycling scavengers in Hong Kong , '' says Sze Lai Shan , a well-known local rights activist and social worker for Hong Kong 's Society for Community Organization , or SOCO . But paper scavengers like Tam are making much less money today than last year . The reason is thousands of miles away , says Jacky Lau , president of one of Hong Kong 's oldest recycling companies . `` Europe is facing many economic problems and this has translated to fewer manufacturing orders for clothes and toys in China , '' explains Lau . `` Fewer orders mean a slowing demand for paper boxes , so prices have fallen dramatically . '' Standing among bales of crushed plastic bottles and piles of books waiting to be recycled , Lau says that one kilogram of waste paper would have gotten about 18 cents this time last year . Today , that value has been halved . Adam Minter , who runs the China-based blog Shanghai Scrap , says the recycling industry as a whole is one of the first to experience a slowdown in the event of a global economic slump . `` The street prices [ for scrap metal ] are down along the east coast of China -- down 50 % from highs of about 6 months ago . They 're very sensitive to demand for raw materials . '' And the paper industry can be even more delicate . `` Paper might be the most consumer sensitive of all because it 's used in packaging - and packaging is used for everything , '' said Minter , who has just finished writing a book about the globalization of the waste and recycling industry . And Hong Kong waste recovery companies are feeling the pinch because 98 % of Hong Kong 's recovered paper goes to be recycled in China , says Lau . He adds several of the city 's 400 firms have already closed down . And he 's not optimistic the economy will make a comeback this year . `` July is when prices should start to pick up . Retailers in Europe and the U.S. should be placing their Christmas orders right now but business has remained relatively quiet . The second half of this year is looking rather grim . '' Lau said he earned up to $ 400,000 last year . This year , he expects to just break even . As for Tam , his hope is just a dollar a day . Like Lau , he is equally uncertain about the future . Back at his tiny 9th story walk-up , entirely subsidized by the government , Tam stashes his paper trash in a corner under a table until he makes his weekly trek to the recycler . The money he makes mostly goes to food for himself , his disabled 32-year old wife and his 10-year old daughter . Tam , who moved to Hong Kong from Guangdong province three years ago , explains that is the only thing he can do for money . He never went to high school and only did four years of elementary school -- two years at each level because of his mental disability . `` I 'm not sure about next year . Prices might rise or fall . It 's like buying shares , you never know whether they are going to rise or fall . '' And so Tam 's only hedge is to keep scavenging for even more paper , shuffling along the city 's streets and hoping that prices rise again . CNN 's Anjali Tsui and Jethro Mullen contributed to this report .
an estimated 10,000 of Hong Kong poor depend on collecting scrap paper . The slowdown in the east coast is hurting paper collectors like Kong Kit Tam . Kong Kit Tam makes 200 collecting scrap paper from trash . The scrap business is a bellwether industry for rising or falling business cycles .