Circularity With Dignity
After my recent visit to Baseco, one question stayed with me long after I left.
Is the income generated from recovered waste enough?
We often talk about plastic waste as a resource. We celebrate how discarded materials can be collected, sorted, washed, processed, recycled, and transformed into something useful again.
And that is true.
But in Baseco, I was reminded of something even more important.
Before waste becomes a resource, someone has to do the work.
Someone has to collect it.
Someone has to sort it.
Someone has to cut open thousands of used sachets by hand.
Someone has to wash them.
Someone has to dry them under the sun.
Someone has to weigh them, prepare them, and connect them back into the recycling value chain.
That work has value.
And if that work has value, then the people doing it must be valued too.
During my visit to the Kabalikat BRAVE Material Recovery Facility, I once again witnessed one of the most organized community-based recovery systems I have seen in the country.
The facility is more than a place where recyclables are stored. It is where discipline, cooperation, and environmental responsibility come together every single day. Community members have developed a working system that keeps valuable materials out of Manila Bay while creating opportunities for local residents to earn a livelihood.
It is an inspiring model.
But perhaps that is precisely why we should ask a harder question.
Not simply whether the system works.
But whether the system is fair.
The real cost of circularity
Community recovery systems are important — and often inspiring. But we should be careful not to romanticize resilience.
If the circular economy depends on communities recovering our waste, are we truly creating opportunity—or are we simply making poverty more productive?
That question is not meant to diminish the remarkable work happening in Baseco. Quite the opposite.
It is because communities like Baseco are doing so much that they deserve far more than our admiration. They deserve our investment.
Too often, we celebrate recycled products without thinking about the people behind them.
We admire a bag woven from discarded sachets.
We applaud companies for increasing recycled content.
We measure recovery rates and diversion targets.
But rarely do we stop to ask:
A circular economy cannot be built on invisible labor.
Nor should it depend on communities doing the hardest work while receiving the smallest share of the value created.
If waste has value, then the people who recover it should share in that value.
From livelihood to enterprise
The future of community-based waste recovery should not be limited to livelihood alone.
It should become a pathway to enterprise—where communities can capture more value, build capability, and lead parts of the circular system themselves.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Communities can:
In other words, communities should not simply participate in the circular economy.
They should help lead it.
What businesses (and EPR systems) must do
This is where businesses also have an important role to play.
Companies should not see community recovery systems merely as a low-cost source of recyclable materials.
They should see them as long-term social and environmental investments.
That means committing to:
These investments strengthen not only communities but the entire recycling ecosystem. They improve material quality, increase recovery rates, build trust, and create more resilient supply chains.
Ultimately, they make circularity more sustainable for everyone.
As someone working in Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), I believe this is where the conversation must continue.
EPR should not only be measured by the number of tons recovered.
It should also be measured by the quality of the systems we create:
Because success is not only about keeping waste out of nature.
It is about ensuring that the people keeping waste out of nature are able to build better lives because of it.
Baseco has already shown us that community-based recovery systems can work.
Now comes the more important challenge.
How do we ensure they become engines of inclusive economic growth?
How do we transform waste work into dignified work?
How do we create circular systems where environmental progress and social progress move together?
The future of waste management should not ask vulnerable communities to carry the burden of circularity for the rest of society.
It should help them share in its value.
Because the ultimate goal is not only to recover waste.
It is to build systems where people, communities, and nature can recover together.
That, to me, is what true circularity looks like.
Circularity with dignity.