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Quantification of Plastic Recovery by the Informal Waste Sector through a Probabilistic Approach
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Researchers used a probabilistic modeling approach to estimate how much plastic waste informal sector workers recover in India, quantifying the sector's unrecognized contribution to diverting plastics from mismanaged disposal while highlighting the uncertainties inherent in bottom-up recovery estimates for low-middle-income country contexts.
Plastic pollution poses a significant threat to human health and the environment, with its impacts expected to worsen due to rising global plastic production. Mismanagement of plastic waste is particularly high in low-middle-income countries like India, which ranks as the 12th largest source of p...
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Quantification of plastic recovery by the informal waste sector through a probabilistic approach
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Researchers used material flow analysis with Monte Carlo simulations to estimate plastic waste management in Chennai, India, finding that the informal waste sector recovers 13–20% of the city's plastic while at least 51% of total plastic waste is mismanaged — with recyclable polymers achieving far higher recovery rates than non-recyclable ones.
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This systematic review quantifies the role of informal waste pickers in reducing plastic pollution worldwide. The findings highlight that these workers prevent significant amounts of plastic from entering the environment, making their contributions essential to global efforts to reduce the microplastic contamination that ultimately affects human health.
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