culture blurb...Chinese pan for gold in sewage.

This story caught my eye because a friend of mine is reading a book about the Alaskan gold rush in the 1800s. Apparently humans going through extremes for gold is a historical theme...still unfolding. from the Telegraph: "A reporter from a Chinese newspaper found a new breed of waste collectors touring the jewellery factories near Daluotang, a township near the city of Guangzhou. They told him that small processing factories had discovered gold and silver filings in the septic tanks that had either washed off workers' hands and faces or been ingested accidentally. The collectors were paid to deliver the contents of septic tanks from factories and dormitory compounds. Processors would then sift, pan and finally recycle the tanks."