Toxic sustainability: Unpacking the dark side of informal plastic circular economy in Accra’s informal settlements

The circular economy (CE) is widely promoted as a pathway to environmental sustainability and green growth, yet evidence from Accra’s informal settlements shows that its informal manifestation often reproduces social and health injustices. This study advances the concept of toxic sustainability to explain how environmental gains are achieved at the expense of human wellbeing. Informal plastic CE actors generate substantial environmental value but remain excluded from social protection, decision making, and value capture. Drawing on 42 in-depth interviews with informal plastic CE workers and a participatory validation workshop with 25 small-scale CE factory owners, informed by political ecology, environmental justice, and labour geography, the findings show that informal CE delivers environmental benefits while exposing workers and surrounding communities to hazardous conditions, chronic toxic exposure, and economic precarity. These outcomes are sustained by exploitative market relations, weak infrastructure, and policy neglect. Without targeted interventions in occupational safety, financial inclusion, infrastructure provision, and governance recognition, CE policies risk entrenching inequality rather than enabling just and sustainable transitions.