Cooling Agents: An Examination of the role of the Informal Recycling Sector in Mitigating Climate Change

Intuition and common sense suggest that recycling waste mitigates greenhouse gases. Now, data from all over the developed world shows this to be true.

But what about the developing world? Almost 1% of the population in cities of the developing world is made up of recyclers, mostly informal and largely poor. Most of them are scarcely acknowledged legally. If, as common sense suggests, they save greenhouse gases by recycling, then it is unfair to ignore their mitigation work in cities. It is also unwise to ignore this work because it is a valuable resource in the fight against climate change. Thus, the aim of this report is twofold: to establish the relationship between municipal solid waste and greenhouse gases, and to undertake a first attempt at quantifying the emissions reductions attributable to the informal recycling sector through the case study of Delhi, India