The First Mile

The First Mile, an initiative of Thread International and WORK, formalizes waste collection networks in low-income communities and bridges the gap for global brands to purchase from these responsible supply chains, while diverting plastic waste from our oceans and landfills. Our work maps waste sheds and helps brands and NGOs understand how best to tackle the social and environmental issues inherent to informal waste economies and implements those solutions directly. We have created supply chains that have saved millions of pounds of plastic from landfills and the ocean, created income generation opportunities for thousands of collectors, and developed programming that has curtailed and remediated child labor in landfills, undercut bad faith practices like predatory lending, and ensured that families can safely make the transition to the formal economy, all while supplying over a dozen global brands with First Mile approved materials that they and their consumers can be proud of.