Qiu Shenghua, 66, is carefully counting his money to purchase stamps at a post office in Xinyang, Henan province.

"I'd like to buy 20 1.2-yuan stamps, 10 0.8 yuan stamps, and 100 envelopes, which altogether is 42 yuan ($6.93)," says Qiu after counting up the amount of mail he has to post.

Qiu is not sending letters or postcards, he is buying the stamps and envelopes to mail the identification cards and certificates he has found on the street while collecting scrap.

Qiu retired from his job as a factory cleaner in 1997, and has made a living as a scavenger ever since.

Qiu's main job is to collect scrap such as bottles, nails and discarded daily utensils at the train station, on street corners, or in the thick grass near the river. This is his second source of income after his monthly pension of 1,700 yuan. Since 2005, Qiu has spent about 2,000 yuan posting more than 1,000 letters returning ID cards, or identification certificates he finds on the street, to their owners. He has posted these lost items to places as far away as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Wang Zuguo, who has worked at the post office for 10 years, is used to seeing Qiu buy his stamps.

"Some people choose to send cards back once or twice when they find them on the bus. However, Qiu has insisted on doing it for many years," Wang says.

"I just want to follow my heart and do something without regret," Qiu says.

The idea to post the cards to their owners occurred to him when he found a wallet containing two ID cards in 2005.

"The owners would feel anxious when they discover their ID cards are lost. We feel the same when such things happened to us," Qiu says.

So he went to the post office to send them back at his own expense.

Several days later, two letters came in succession, the owners thanking him for his kindness.

"I am the kind of person who likes hearing 'thank you', it makes me happy when I help others," he says.

Qiu became inspired to become a one man lost-and-found service.

The ID cares are often thrown away with an empty wallet by thieves after they have taken all the money, Qiu says.

"People should take care of their wallets when walking on the street, especially the girls," Qiu says.

After years of experience, Qiu has come to know where he might recover an empty wallet on the street. It's usually in the thick grass around the area pickpockets frequent, he says.

Bankcards are also often left in the wallets, but Qiu chooses to only send the ID cards because the bankcards can be retrieved easily and sending them can raise the cost of postage.

Qiu's mother, Zhao Yuerong, 90, says she is proud of her son helping so many strangers to recover their lost items.

"Though it is a small thing, it can be transformed into a big one by persistence," Zhao says.

Qiu attributes his love of reuniting valuables with their owners to a good deed he did when he was a teenager. In 1960, when he was 13 years old, he found a valuable letter with a bankbook on the street and handed it in to his teacher. He later received a silk banner from the owner, a military officer.

"I have kept that red silk banner from the military officer in my storage to this day," says Qiu, "It brings me good memories of my time at school."

In his 6-square-meter storage room, tucked in among a bag of bottles and his tool collection, is a collection of what at first glance, looks like scrap paper.

Ten pieces of paper of different sizes list the owners' names and address based on the ID cards he picked, a record of his recovery of stolen IDs.

"Not everyone could understand me in the beginning, but I do it for my conscience," Qiu says.

qixin@chinadaily.com.cn