Priority pilot geography
Tanzania Plastic Waste Recovery Infrastructure & Recycling Data (2026)
Coastal and lakeside cities with fast urban growth, high sachet and bottle consumption, and formal collection reaching only part of each municipality.
Model updated 2026
Country totals across profiled cities
- Cities profiled
- 3Urban agglomerations modelled in this directory
- Population covered
- 7.3million
- Unmanaged plastic
- 322t / day
- Informal collectors
- 5,720Estimated workforce already handling this material
Policy context: Single-use plastic carrier bags prohibited since 2019; recovery of rigid packaging remains largely informal.
City profiles
| City | Population | Unmanaged plastic (t/day) | PET (t/day) | LDPE film (t/day) | Hub target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dar es Salaam | 5.38M | 244.1 | 83 | 70.8 | 215 |
| Zanzibar City | 0.71M | 33.7 | 13.5 | 8.8 | 28 |
| Mwanza | 1.18M | 43.9 | 13.6 | 13.2 | 47 |
Methodology
How these figures are produced
- Urban population from national statistics offices and UN-Habitat urban agglomeration estimates.
- Municipal solid waste per capita from World Bank What a Waste 2.0 income-band and country figures.
- Plastic share of the waste stream from national waste characterisation studies where available, otherwise the regional band (8–13%).
- Unmanaged share from UNEP and OECD mismanaged-waste ratios for the country's collection coverage.
- Polymer split from published characterisation of East and North African urban packaging streams.
- Hub targets model one community aggregation point per ~25,000 residents; collector counts follow published informal-sector surveys.
These are transparent desk estimates, not field measurements. AfriloopX is pre-pilot: any figure will be replaced with primary, weighbridge-verified data once collection operates.
Working on plastic recovery in Tanzania?
We share the full assumption set, source list and pilot design framework with municipal, donor and corporate partners.