Global Plastic Pollution and Informal Waste Pickers

Increasingly plastic pollution is being recognized as a critical environmental and human health threat of unprecedented scale and complexity.While trends in plastic production and consumption are still on the rise, the negative effects of uncollected, mismanaged, dumped or incinerated plastic waste are causing profound impacts on the environment, oceans, climate and food chains compromising the quality of life for humans and other living beings, with expected cumulative negative effects for the near future.Particularly populations in the Global South, where new markets for plastic consumer goods have rapidly emerged over the past 30 years, while waste management, in general, has remained precarious, underfunded or inexistant, directly experience the burdens of plastic pollution.The emerging environmental problems are particularly visible in these regions and so are also possible solutions and alternatives.Approximately 20 million informal workers already recover plastic waste from the garbage in the Global South, usually working under precarious, risky and poorly paid conditions.The literature claims that they represent a work force that if recognized, integrated and valued and under decent work conditions could potentially increase significantly the capturing of plastic waste and reduce the amount of fugitive plastics.This review paper applies an anthropogenic global environmental change theory lens to discusses the key challenges in managing plastic waste and global plastic pollution, uncovering major causes, impacts from dispersion and leakage of plastics into soil, water and air, recognizing the relational and geographic perspectives of plastic waste.A concerted effort is required in coordinating policies and technological solutions in order to strengthening, fund and recognize the waste picker sector as key protagonist in addressing this waste issue. Impact StatementThe manifold negative impacts from plastics are far reaching and not yet fully understood nor acknowledged.This research points towards the complex environmental and climate effects from plastic waste and plastic pollution and highlights the fact that climate impacts and environmental destruction occur before we even think of it as a problem: at the extraction level, followed by production and transportation.Plastic waste becomes visible only as discard after consumption, when it ends up in garbage or recycling bins and when it becomes fugitive, widely distributed by wind and water or entangled in nature.Worldwide mismanaged and escaped plastics in particular, have created a global plastic problem.Plastic waste ending up in incinerators produces greenhouse gas emissions, making it difficult for cities to reach the goal of net zero carbon emissions.For plastics that are recyclable the collection, separation and transformation of plastic items channeled towards a circular path, where plastics become a resource to produce new plastic items.Waste pickers worldwide are the main protagonists in collecting and redirecting these materials towards the recycling industry.Yet, too many plastic products are not recyclable, contaminating the recycling stream, hindering the work of waste pickers at the triage centers, ending up as burden costing time and money.This alarming situation calls for a global plastic regulation to avoid the production of materials that are toxic and cannot be recycled.The research shows that waste pickers are central figures in diverting

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