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From Waste Pickers to Producers: An Inclusive Circular Economy Solution through Development of Cooperatives in Waste Management
Summary
This paper presented an inclusive circular economy framework centered on waste picker cooperatives in developing countries, arguing that integrating informal sector workers into formal plastic recycling systems improves both waste management outcomes and social equity, with case studies from Latin America and Africa illustrating successful models.
The world’s global plastics waste crisis demands policy coordination and technological solutions to improve waste management systems, and organizations worldwide have created momentum around the concept of a circular economy. This paper advances a holistic, inclusive circular economy framework that aims to empower waste pickers with the following basic pillars: (1) build collaborative networks of stakeholders to enable inclusion of waste pickers; (2) establish cooperative enterprise models to integrate waste pickers into the formal economy; (3) build waste pickers’ technical skills and capacity for entrepreneurship; and (4) provide access to technologies and markets that enable waste pickers to manufacture upcycled products.
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