Draft guidance on how to address environmentally sound management in the informal sector

As referred to in the note by the Secretariat on the development of guidelines for environmentally sound management (UNEP/CHW/OEWG.11/3), the annex to the present note sets out draft guidance on how to address environmentally sound management (ESM) in the informal sector prepared by the expert working group on environmentally sound management. The present note, including its annex, has not been formally edited.

There are many different viewpoints concerning what characteristics define the informal sector. In general, the informal sector consists of individuals, groups, and small businesses that perform informal waste services involving the collection and sale of recyclables, usually through middlemen.2 Workers earn income by selling the recyclables they collect to a network of dealers and recycling industries that work within the formal private sector;3 in other cases, workers may sell to other informal sector workers that reuse the material as input into another process or product.

Draft guidance on ESM in the informal sector