Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, a waste worker from Binh Dinh, Vietnam, has worked in the waste collection industry for four decades. She has spent every day at the landfill – her home and source of income – since she was a child. Like many developing economies in the region, Vietnam has limited household waste separation. Informal workers like Thuy support 90% of plastics recycling in the country, separating materials by hand and delivering them to collection centers. Southeast Asia is the source of over half of the world’s ocean plastic, due to inadequate waste management infrastructure in many emerging economies. But these rapidly developing markets also present huge potential for impact when it comes to the global fight against plastic pollution, and harnessing the informal workforce will be a central part of the solution. While a patchwork of solutions is emerging across Asia, greater collaboration between the public, private and nonprofit sectors can tap into this critical global workforce while also providing opportunities to protect livelihoods for informal workers on a much larger scale. Thuy and her counterparts in other developing countries form a vast network of approximately 20 million workers who contribute to almost 60% of global plastics recycling. Despite the critical role they play, their contributions are often overlooked, and they endure deplorable conditions with inadequate pay, child labor, and health risks. But experience shows us that integrating informal workers, harnessing their specific skills and contributions, can result in more transparent and efficient value chains for recycled plastics in…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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