Increasing Employment by Creating Value from Plastic Waste in Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s waste system is not profitable, not widely implemented, and leads to environmental damage. Streams that are easy to recycle and have a high value, such as glass, metal and PET, are more likely to be collected and recirculated into the economy than low-value and hard-to-recycle waste. As only items with a higher established value are recycled, there is a missed opportunity for lower value plastic. Practical Action and commercial partner Riverrecycle Oy, seek to transform the lives of informal waste workers by creating a new market for a stream of plastic waste which currently has no commercial value. The project introduces pyrolysis technology to the most polluted points of the Padma River in Bangladesh, and will integrate waste pickers into a plastic-collection and processing workstream, creating new jobs, improving working conditions and creating commercial value out of plastic waste.