A Seat at the Table

Why India’s plastic EPR must include wastepickers and the informal recycling sector.

Who really makes EPR work?

Chintan Environmental Research and Action Group’s latest report, A Seat at the Table, explores the vital role of India’s informal recycling sector—particularly wastepickers—in enabling Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for plastics. Despite collecting and processing a majority of the country’s plastic waste, informal workers remain largely excluded from EPR frameworks.

Launched at a high-level panel discussion, the report makes a compelling case for rethinking the plastic value chain to centre equity, ethical sourcing, and inclusion.

The report argues that India’s EPR system cannot succeed without recognizing and fairly compensating the 15-lakh strong informal workforce that collects, sorts, and aggregates plastic waste. Currently, these workers remain invisible in compliance structures and reporting requirements. This exclusion not only weakens implementation but deepens environmental injustice.

A Seat at the Table draws from field data, policy analysis, and national and global case studies to:

Reveal the informal sector’s crucial but overlooked contribution to achieving EPR targets.
Highlight how material-centric EPR models ignore human labour at the core of plastic recovery.
Recommend ways to integrate wastepickers through traceability, registration, fair payment, and gender-sensitive reuse practices.

Launched just ahead of the UN INC negotiations on the Global Plastics Treaty, the report offers a timely intervention into global conversations on plastics and environmental equity.

A Seat at the Table presents a roadmap to make India’s plastic EPR system both effective and equitable — by integrating wastepickers, ensuring ethical sourcing, and acknowledging that producers’ responsibility must extend to the people collecting their waste.