Occupational health impact of plastic recycling

The present paper is based on the preliminary observations on the plastic reprocessing industry in Bangalore, a Southern Indian city. Bangalore has approximately 300 plastic reprocessing units. Each unit employs on an average 5 people. An average recycling capacity of a reprocessing unit is a quarter ton a day. This amounts to 75 tons of plastic waste reprocessed in a day. Nearly, 60 per cent of the waste reprocessed in a day is directly procured from plastic processing and manufacturing industries and other institutions and rest, roughly 27 to 30 tons per day, is post consumer plastic waste.