Duration: September 2025 – January 2026

Client: UNDP, Bangladesh

Sample Size: 1475 Questionnaire Survey with three respondent groups (waste workers, households, and business), 7 FGDs, 40 KIIs, and 7 observation checklists

Responsibilities: Survey Tools Design, Field Team Supervision, Developing ODK, Database Management, Data Analysis, and Writing the Report.

Contributing to this project while working at Bangladesh Institute of Social Research Trust

Executive Summary

This report presents a comprehensive gender analysis of the plastic waste value chain in Bangladesh, focusing on Chattogram City Corporation, Cox’s Bazar Municipality, and Tangail Municipality as part of UNDP’s Plastic Circularity project implementing with the support of the Coca-Cola Foundation. The primary objectives include mapping gendered roles across waste collection, sorting, processing, and recycling; identifying barriers and vulnerabilities (social, health, economic, cultural) that hinder women’s and marginalized groups’ involvement; assessing disparities in access to finance, training, technology, and markets; exploring health and safety risks; and recommending gender-responsive reforms, providing basic facilities, capacity-building initiatives, and policy adjustments to foster inclusive circular economy practices.

Methodology

Employing a mixed-methods approach under the Gender-Responsive Circularity Analysis (GRCA) Framework, which integrates tools like the Harvard Analytical Framework and UNDP’s Gender Marker , the research combined quantitative surveys (with samples of 779 households, 562 waste workers, and 151 institutions, stratified for representativeness and adjusted for design effects) with qualitative insights from Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), In-depth Interviews (IDIs), and observation checklists. An intersectional lens highlighted how gender intersects with age, disability, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, ensuring a nuanced view of diverse experiences. Key Findings

Household

At the household level, the management of waste is predominantly a female responsibility, reinforcing existing gender norms and contributing significantly to time poverty. The data shows that adult women are primarily responsible for gathering waste (77.85%) and separating recyclables (66.45%) within the home. This burden exists within a context where women already dedicate an average of 7.15 hours daily to unpaid care work, over five times the amount undertaken by male family members. This “time poverty” is a critical structural constraint, limiting women’s capacity for paid employment, skill development, or community participation. Despite bearing this burden, women exercise notable economic agency in the informal recycling segment. In 75.63% of households, women are the primary sellers of plastic waste to dealers, and they control the resulting income in 81.87% of cases. This control provides a rare but vital avenue for financial autonomy, particularly in low-income households. However, household efforts are often undermined by systemic failures in municipal service delivery. Access to reliable waste collection and proximate disposal infrastructure varies drastically, creating a stark urban-peripheral divide. While Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar report relatively higher service access, Tangail exhibits a catastrophic failure: 36.11% of households never receive collection services, and 91.67% report having no official disposal point nearby. This infrastructural deficit forces communities, particularly in underserved areas, to resort to environmentally harmful practices like dumping waste in water bodies or open burning. The primary barriers to household waste segregation are logistical and time-related: excessive time and effort required, lack of storage space, and a profound trust deficit stemming from the perception that collectors mix segregated waste anyway. These findings underscore that behavioral change campaigns are insufficient without addressing the foundational issues of reliable infrastructure and the disproportionate time burden on women.

Waste Worker

The analysis of the waste worker population reveals a sector characterized by a rigid two-tiered system split between formal and informal labour, with gender being a key determinant of placement and vulnerability. The workforce is predominantly male (70.60%), with female workers constituting 28.52% and third-gender individuals less than 1%. A profound structural barrier is the high level of functional illiteracy, affecting nearly half of all workers, which limits their engagement with formal systems. Female workers are overwhelmingly concentrated in the informal economy, with 77% classified as informal waste pickers or scavengers, compared to a more balanced distribution for men. This informal status correlates with heightened precarity, lack of legal protection, and greater exposure to occupational hazards. Occupational segregation along gender lines is severe and directly fuels economic disparity. Women are largely confined to low-value, manual, and stationary roles such as gathering waste from sources (46.91%) and sorting materials (38.27%). Men, conversely, dominate higher-value, technical, and mobile roles like driving transport vehicles (27.43%) and machinery operation. This segregation is rationalized by employers through perceptions of women’s physical limitations and aversion to risk, but it effectively traps women in the lowest-paid segments of the value chain. Consequently, a significant gender wage gap exists: female workers earn an average daily income of 311 BDT, which is 30% less than the 442 BDT earned by male workers. Third-gender workers report even greater economic vulnerability, with one transgender respondent earning only 300 BDT daily. The time poverty observed at the household level extends into the working lives of female waste workers. They spend significantly fewer hours in paid work (7.7 hours daily) compared to men (9.25 hours), a disparity mirrored by their disproportionate burden of unpaid care work (4.3 hours daily vs. 1.1 hours for men). This dual burden severely restricts opportunities for income generation, skill training, or advancement. Access to formal financial systems is minimal, with 85.21% of all workers, and 90.12% of women, receiving payments exclusively in cash. This reliance on cash, coupled with a lack of formal identification—a critical barrier for third-gender individuals, results in high rates of loan denial, perpetuating a cycle of asset poverty. Health, safety, and dignity at work are critically neglected, with gendered implications. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) use is alarmingly low, with 65% of all workers and 74% of women reporting they never use it. Even when provided, PPE is often ill-fitting and unsuitable. Workplace infrastructure is severely lacking; 30% of workers report having no toilet facility at all, and 50% of female workers note the absence of separate sanitation. This not only poses health risks but also infringes upon basic dignity. Work-related injuries and illnesses are common, with 43.13% of workers reporting severe musculoskeletal issues and 21.13% citing symptoms of chemical exposure. Female workers face specific reproductive health risks, with 3.09% reporting related issues, compounded by a staggering 93% being unaware of these risks. Gender-based violence and harassment are significant concerns, disproportionately affecting third-gender workers, 50% of whom reported experiencing or witnessing such incidents.

Businesses and Institutions

The institutional landscape governing and operating within the waste value chain demonstrates a profound lack of gender sensitivity, reinforcing the disparities experienced on the ground. The sector is dominated by male leadership, with 94.67% of the highest-ranking executives in surveyed institutions being men. This gender ceiling translates into policy inertia, where issues critical to women workers are overlooked. For instance, 91% of institutions do not support women-led supply chains, and 49% lack any formal sexual harassment policy. Social protection for workers, particularly women in ad-hoc roles, is virtually non-existent, with 35% of institutions explicitly providing no coverage. There is an obvious contradiction between institutional perceptions of barriers to hiring women and their actions. The most frequently cited barrier by businesses is “time constraint of women due to family responsibilities” (50.94%), followed by a “lack of qualified female applicants” (47.17%). However, investment in infrastructure to alleviate these constraints is negligible: only 2% of institutions provide childcare, 16% offer separate and clean sanitation, and a mere 27% provide gender-fitted PPE to all workers. This attribution bias reveals a tendency to externalize the problem onto women’s societal roles rather than internally reforming workplace policies and conditions. Qualitative interviews with business owners further exposed deeply ingrained biases, with some explicitly stating beliefs that women lack the capacity to understand business or handle technical roles.

Major Gender Concerns

The analysis culminates in several key findings that articulate the major gender concerns within Bangladesh’s plastic waste value chain. • First, the sector is fundamentally sustained by the unpaid and undervalued labour of women at the household level, which creates a structural foundation of time poverty that limits their economic potential. • Second, a rigid occupational segregation funnels women and marginalized genders into the most informal, hazardous, and low-paying segments of the chain, while men control technical, managerial, and capital-intensive roles. This segregation is the direct driver of a persistent 30% gender wage gap.Third, a near-total absence of social protection and widespread neglect of occupational health and safety standards expose workers, particularly women, to acute physical, chemical, and social risks without recourse or compensation. • Fourth, systemic barriers to financial inclusion, including reliance on cash, lack of formal identification, and asset-based loan criteria, lock women and third-gender individuals out of capital and entrepreneurship opportunities, cementing their economic precarity. • Fifth, governance structures and institutional mindsets are overwhelmingly male-dominated, resulting in policy voids that fail to mandate or incentivize gender-inclusive practices, from procurement to workplace safety. • Finally, intersecting identities, such as being from the Harijan community, a person with a disability, or a third-gender individual, amplify these vulnerabilities, leading to compounded discrimination, social stigma, and exclusion from both market opportunities and communal support networks.

Recommendations • Establishing registration for all waste workers (formal, informal, or self-employed). • Allowing third-gender and transgender workers to register using their preferred identity without legal documentation barriers. • Providing registered women workers with subsidized childcare vouchers usable at community centers near collection sites. • Granting automatic access to portable health insurance covering reproductive care, maternity cash equivalent to 12 weeks’ wages, injury compensation, and co-funded pension contributions. • Requiring all waste management operators (public and private) to allocate at least 5-7% of operational budgets to a dedicated Care Economy Fund as a licensing prerequisite. • Using fund revenues to finance secure on-site childcare facilities near sorting hubs and provide clean, gender-separate sanitation with drinking water at all collection points. • Reserving at least 30% of municipal waste contracts and EPR schemes for materials sourced directly from registered women-led or third-gender cooperatives and small enterprises. • Mandating minimum 25% representation of women and marginalized groups (third-gender individuals, persons with disabilities) on all municipal waste policy and grievance committees. • Making annual waste facility licenses conditional on providing lockable women’s sanitation with menstrual supplies, breastfeeding corners, disability-accessible workstations, shaded rest areas, and drinking water within 20 meters. • Requiring employers to supply properly fitted PPE for women’s body measurements to all workers regardless of employment status, with license suspension for refusal. • Conducting twice-yearly biomonitoring tests for workers handling toxic plastics, with mandatory reassignment of pregnant workers to safer tasks without pay cuts. • Enforcing compliance through third-party audits with escalating penalties including correction notice, then minimum 30% revenue fine, then license revocation and contract blacklisting. • Extending Labour Act equal pay provisions to informal waste workers through standardized job classifications based on skills and risks, not gender assumptions about “light” versus “heavy” work. • Creating modular training moving workers from basic efficiency skills to technical machine operation to business management, delivered in accessible formats for those with limited literacy. • Offering alternative livelihood training (tailoring, phone repair, food processing, handicrafts from recycled materials) for workers seeking to exit the waste sector due to health issues or personal choice. • Providing startup grants upon training completion covering equipment, initial inventory, and 12 months of hands-on business mentorship to ensure skills translate into actual income.