Clean Cities, Blue Ocean Gender Equality & Women’s Economic Empowerment Fact Sheet

Across the globe, women play a critical role in the solid waste management (SWM) and recycling sectors. They serve in both formal and informal positions as waste collectors, owners or employees of small recycling centers and junkshops, workers in plastic and pre-processing companies, and sometimes as owners or workers in upcycling enterprises. In the sector, women face gendered structural barriers that limit their earning power and constrain their access to opportunities for upward mobility. For example, because women have limited access to credit, training, and time, they tend to work in the informal SWM sector where they receive lower wages, few health and safety protections, and are at heightened risk of gender-based violence, including sexual harassment. Globally, women are virtually absent from the middle reaches of the SWM value chain and represent a fraction of SWM sector leaders.

Given women’s deep involvement in the first stages of the waste value chain, they have a significant role to play in establishing more effective waste systems that advance a wide range of environmental and social development objectives—from intercepting waste to reduce ocean plastic pollution, to mitigating climate change through more efficient and cleaner waste processing. Plastic contributes to the climate crisis by releasing damaging greenhouse gases when incinerated or disposed of improperly, choking carbon-offloading mangroves and coral reefs, as well as clogging urban drainage systems that communities depend on to alleviate climate-linked flooding and to protect them from mosquito-borne diseases. Because of women’s significant and often differentiated roles in managing plastic waste, empowering women as economic actors who are meaningfully participating—including in household decision making and as leaders in the sector—is critical to achieving sustainable development, gender equality, and women’s empowerment goals.

Through Clean Cities Blue Ocean (CCBO), USAID is working to eliminate ocean plastic pollution, while contributing to global climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. The program strengthens local SWM systems and circular economies, empowering and supporting women as leaders in the process. In the Philippines, for example, CCBO is partnering with women-led waste collection and recycling businesses to prevent environmental leakage; supporting the development of a skilled waste sector workforce with access to safe working conditions; and working with the public and private sectors to strengthen the enabling environment for these services and other waste reduction, recycling, and reuse initiatives.