Mr Zulhaqem Zulkifli, 27, used to spend Sundays with his father, rummaging through dumpsters for scrap metal and cardboard boxes to sell.

It was hard work under the hot sun. "People thought I was in some sports CCA (co-curricular activity) because I was so tanned. I told them 'yeah, I do sports - at the dumpsters'," the philosophy student at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) said in jest.