Rebar

In China it is often easier and quicker to use some of the vast human power to achieve a goal rather than designing and implementing a technology solution. Rebar is a good example. As China redoubles its efforts and expenditures on commercial and residential infrastructure in second- and third-tier cities it requires massive amounts of steel reinforcement bars (rebar). Rather than mining, smelting, and rolling new rebar, the main practice is to hire (very inexpensive) laborers to knock down old buildings and "harvest" the old rebar by chipping away the old concrete. Old towns disappear this way, and new ones rise in their place, all while the West is fast asleep, one day behind!