Unilever Bangladesh and Circular, a social purpose-driven organisation involved in plastic waste management, have joined hands to collect 1,000 tonnes of plastic from Dhaka in the next year.

The plastic wastes will be collected from Dhaka North City Corporation and Dhaka South City Corporation from June 2022 to May 2023.

Read: Unilever Bangladesh launches Sustainability Report 2021

According to the World Bank data, less than 30 percent of the plastic waste produced in Bangladesh is collected and only 37 percent of the collected plastic waste is recycled while the remaining is landfilled, among which an estimated 24,032–36,047 tonnes are dumped in the river system.

To prevent this environmental catastrophe caused by plastic waste pollution, Unilever Bangladesh believes it is important to build a sustainable circular loop that contributes to the circular economy and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The company has built multi-stakeholder models with diversified partners to collect 10,000 tonnes of plastic from the environment by 2023.

Unilever and Circular will work together to build a sustainable and equitable reverse supply chain for the recovery of all kinds of post-consumer plastic waste.

Circular's plastic collection model will help bring together the waste collectors, increasing the transparency and traceability of the supply chain.

Also, it works at the household level to create awareness about the harmful effects of plastic pollution and the need for segregation at the source to recover all plastics to improve their recyclability.