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Tuesday, July 22, 2025
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Invisible Hands, Visible Waste: Laos Faces Plastic Overload Amid Falling Prices

This Week

By Green Vientiane:  Serge Doussantousse, Chanthakad Souksavath, Nicolas Charlassier – 

The slowly fading bags and crushed bottles littering Vientiane tell only part of the city’s plastic story. 

Beneath this visible pollution lies a deeper crisis. One that threatens both the natural environment of Laos and the immediate health of hundreds who depend on the plastic trade. 

As world leaders gather in Geneva to discuss a Global Plastic Treaty this August, the struggle in Lao junkshops shows why action is urgently needed.

Sinking Price, Failing Health  

In the alleys behind Vientiane’s local markets, Khamla, a waste picker, sorts through his daily collection with his hands blackened by grime. Just two years ago, the same amount of plastic would have earned him LAK 8,000 per kilogram. Today, waste traders offer barely half that price. 

“The factories say they can’t export it anymore,” Khamla explained, coughing into his stained sleeve. “But how am I supposed to feed my family when the price keeps falling, and my health keeps failing?”  

Khamla’s story echoes across Laos’ informal recycling networks. 

Where plastic once flowed freely to Thailand and Vietnam, new restrictions there have left piles of unsold plastic stacking up across Laos.

Factories now want cleaner plastic than small collectors can easily supply, forcing waste pickers to sort dirtier loads with little or no protection.

Thousands Tons of Plastic Waste Unmanaged per Year

A pile of trash on the mud-covered street (Photo supplied)

Meanwhile, Laos’ plastic production and consumption continue unabated. 

Vientiane municipality’s most recent report revealed that the capital city alone generates 711 tons of household waste per day, with transportation to landfills only amounting to 500 tons. 

Plastic waste represents 24 percent of the total waste, according to several sources from the Government and the World Bank, which could result in some 18,000 tons of unmanaged plastic waste annually. 

The majority of everyday household trash is dumped in an overcrowded landfill located 32 kilometers from the capital. 

Somphone, who runs a junkshop in Chanthabouly district, expressed frustration, explaining that while plastic manufacturers continue ramping up production, there’s little demand for the discarded material, leaving people like him to deal with the environmental and health fallout.

At the August meeting in Geneva, the proposed Extended Producer’s Responsibility (EPR) should be at the center of the negotiations to bring a significant degree of responsibility for plastic producers to bear the cost of the disposal. 

For countries like Laos, a first step towards this EPR could be fairer acknowledgement and incentives for informal waste pickers like Khamla by the main plastic producers and relevant authorities. 

A Ticking Bomb at our Doorstep

A bunch of plastic waste (Photo supplied)

The risk is immediate for informal waste pickers. Studies link exposure to microplastics with respiratory diseases and other chronic ailments. Yet waste workers remain invisible in policy debates. 

Khamla, wiping plastic residue from his face, pointed out a common misconception, that plastic vanishes once it’s discarded. 

In reality, he explained, it lingers in the environment, ultimately affecting human health and putting future generations at risk.

In a positive step forward, the municipality is pushing to curb the unmanaged plastic.  Will it suffice? Time will tell. Unfortunately, however, time is not a luxury anymore. Estimated to double in the next decades, plastic production, consumption and growing waste loom over today’s children and future generations. Will there be enough people who want to work as waste pickers in these poor conditions? The upcoming global negotiations could help, but Laos can’t wait for international consensus. 

As the sun sets over Vientiane’s recycling yards, the day’s unsold plastic sits waiting. It’s a stark reminder that behind the global policy debates are real people. People sorting through dirt with bare hands, people whose children play and breathe in microplastic-laced dust, people whose living depends on the very material that’s slowly harming them.  

While the world will debate the future of plastic in Geneva this August, in Laos, that future is being decided now, in the cracked hands of collectors, and their impossible choice between today’s meal and tomorrow’s health.  

Green Vientiane is documenting these stories and advocating for solutions that protect both people and the environment. The names of interviewees have been changed to protect their privacy.

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