Trash picking economics
As for recycling, Moloney said developing countries should improve health and safety conditions, while still benefiting from informal recyclers. Because trash pickers are separating their finds by hand, they can extract a greater variety of recyclables, such as textiles and different copper types, rather than just the traditional paper and plastic.
Advanced nations rely on machines, which can do basic categorizing by material type and color, whereas pickers can also sort by size and shape. Moloney said richer states can use economies of scale — that is, combine recycling in larger facilities — so they have the capacity for more sophisticated sorting.
Still, Moloney praised rich countries for recycling ever more materials because they have strong policies in place. He showed data for the United Kingdom, which now recycles more than 25 percent of trash, compared with 6-7 percent two decades ago. But he could not contrast that with developing countries, which he said tend not to keep such statistics.
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