Plastic pollution and poverty

Plastic pollution is causing a social emergency, as well as an environmental one. Between 2000 and 2019, plastic waste generation more than doubled. Today, half of all plastic is designed to be used just once. And yet some 2 billion people in low- and middle-income countries don’t have access to solid waste collection. They have little other option but to burn or dump it, with wide-ranging and extremely harmful results. Plastic pollution is directly impacting the achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, and contributing directly to the climate emergency.

In part one, we explore these impacts through six different lenses – waste pickers, agriculture, recycling facilities, urban areas, tourism and fishing – which demonstrate the breadth and gravity of the social emergency plastic pollution is causing.

In part two, we explore how people living in poverty find themselves trapped in a vicious cycle where plastic packaging appears essential to their daily life but has devastating effects on their health and livelihoods. They are caught in a plastics trap, and that trap needs to be sprung by reducing production of and reliance upon plastic. As we transition towards a circular economy we must ensure no one gets left behind and that people living in poverty can access the goods that they need and want without harming their health and livelihoods.

In part three, we explore the contribution of waste pickers in tackling plastic pollution and the challenges and opportunities they face. At least 20 million people earn an income as waste pickers, collecting, sorting and recycling plastic. They are the backbone of the recycling system, collecting approximately 60 per cent of all the plastic gathered for recycling globally. While plastic production must be reduced, that shouldn’t mean waste pickers are left behind. There is a better way forward.