Out of the river, into our pockets

By Sabrina Heerema

On Wednesday July 19th, Doko Recyclers, together with Samyukta Safai Jagaran (SASAJA, the first organization for waste workers in Nepal), inaugurated the first RIPL project plastics recycling facility, a major milestone for project in that we are testing a working model and conditions that informal sector operators have expressed a need or desire for, in order to increase their capacity and to minimize plastics in rivers.

It’s located at Dallu, along the Bishnumati riverbank, where our project has leased an area and onboarded 3 members of SASAJA who work at the hub full-time. They have an electric car at their disposal for collection of plastics from households and businesses around rivers. Waste is collected, then sorted, and then their materials are sent to Teku transfer station or sold to recyclers. The project is funding the salary of the three workers, their social insurance and healthcare services, in addition to leasing the hub location. While they are collecting plastics they are also gathering data, which will help actors within the plastic pollution theme to better analyse and solve plastic pollution problems within Nepal.

The hub will operate for a 3-month period initially, and the mode of operation will be tested and refined in order to hopefully become sustainable over a longer period of time. Should this trial period and possibly any continuation of the hub be successful, our project will expand the operation to include further hubs and self-sustained incomes and training for more informal sector operators.

The RIPL project aims to reduce plastics in Kathmandu rivers by strengthening the informal sector, through:  

• Mapping plastics hotspots and understanding the challenges of informal sector operators 
• Increasing the value of plastics and capacity of informal sector operators to collect more plastics by testing the operation of plastic collection hubs, locally-adapted plastics recycling facilities and building the capacity of women.  

This project is financed by The Norwegian Retailers’ Environment Fund under grant agreement 12439.