Turning river rubbish into money in Bangladesh

New work led by Practical Action is set to improve marine and animal life, human health and create wealth for thousands of waste workers in Bangladesh.

A new Pyrolysis plant is converting single-use plastics collected by waste workers from homes, businesses, dumps, and rivers in Faridpur. The plastics are turned into light synthetic fuel oil and black carbon-which is tiny black particles which can be sold as printing ink.

A Pyrolysis plant is a recycling machine that can convert vast amounts of plastic waste into oil or fuel.

The waste management challenge in Bangladesh is daunting. Each year an estimated 800,000 tonnes of plastic waste are generated. A significant percentage also gets burnt on the side of roads contributing to Bangladesh’s poor air quality and releasing significant greenhouse gas emissions. While there is recycling of plastic bottles – most single-use plastics and soft plastics ends up in landfills, the local environment, or via Bangladesh’s many rivers into the ocean.

This is more worrying especially in cities such as Dhaka and Chittagong where 10% of daily waste is plastic, with less than half getting recycled.

Faridpur is home to nearly 500,000 people and generates 6.2 tonnes of single-use plastic waste daily equivalent to the weight of half a London New Routemaster bus per day.

The waste management challenge is not just a concern for Bangladesh. According to UNEP – UN Environment Programme, global municipal waste will increase to 3.8 billion tonnes per year by 2050 equivalent to a 8.6 million Boeing 747s, in the next 30 years, as more people move from rural areas into urban centres and what we consume continues to change.

The Faridpur plastic pyrolysis plant is expected to treat 360kg of thin-film plastic daily. That is 36% of a tonne to help tackle the waste management crisis for a region that is on the sharp end of the climate crisis.

Although this will not solve the plastic waste crisis in rivers, it will act as a living example of the sort of technology and approach needed to address it. Once the waste has a value for collectors, incentivising more sorting and collection, our commercial partner River Recycle will consider scaling up operations.

Practical Action has for several years been helping to resolve this issue by creating markets for rubbish. This is done with informal waste workers so that they are part of the solution.

Lucy Stevens, Practical Action Head of Urban Services said,

“Our approach to waste management is people-centred.

“We start by working with the many informal workers who are already at the heart of collection and recycling. They already have skills and connections to identify different types of waste and where they can be sold.

“We support them through a Transformative Model to improve the safety, efficiency, and value of their work in partnership with the Local Government”.

The initiative started in 2021 will by 2025:

• Transform the lives of informal waste workers, create new jobs, and reduce plastic waste pollution. The sale of oil will ensure the sustainability and financial viability of the pyrolysis business.
• Reduce river-based plastic pollution, which would flow into the Indian Ocean, by installing a floating litter trap to remove plastic from the river.
• Integrate waste management into local government structures, work with existing waste management processes, and partner with other waste actors to create new ideas and achieve both business and social benefits.
• The project aims to equip waste workers with the skills to collect, classify, and recycle single-use plastics, resulting in a robust market for such materials.
• Establish river cleaning units, land-based collection, sorting, and plastic cleaning systems. Four pyrolysis units will be established, creating 300 new jobs, and improving 1700 existing jobs in waste collection, sorting, cleaning, and processing.
• Relevant laws and standards will be developed and advocated for, and market outlets for pyrolysis products will be connected to develop a market chain for low-value, non-recyclable waste.

Fariduzzaman Shapon, Practical Action project manager for the new initiative said,

“Plastic pollution is a growing crisis in Bangladesh. It impacts cities, towns, forests, soils, rivers, and even the air we breathe! This pyrolysis plant offers a blueprint for others, so they can take action and create hope for the future.

“It is a glimpse of the future where single-use plastics can be managed in an environmentally sustainable way which reduces the need for new fossil fuels, reduces air pollution, and creates a clean environment for future generations.

“We are now working with waste worker co-operative to improve and create new employment through creating a new market for single use plastic waste, so that we create demand for items that currently have very limited commercial value.

“We know tackling the plastic crisis will require a two-pronged approach, both advocating with companies to reduce production of plastics, and ensuring more of what is produced is collected and recycled.

“As we achieve that, our will be to advocate for others in positions of power to take this work to scale so many more of our rivers, cities can benefit along with millions more people.”

Practical Action is partnering with a state-of-the-art supplier Scarab Tech from South Africa, whose machinery uses an emission-free process, heating (not burning) plastic in a sealed container and distilling it back into fuel.

The project, Increasing employment by creating value from plastic waste in Bangladesh, is financed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark, through the DANIDA Markets Development Partnership and delivered by Practical Action in partnership with Society Development Committee, River Recycle and Faridpur Municipality.