For years, nobody in power paid attention to them. However, that started to change in March 2022, when the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-5.2) formally recognized "the significant contribution made by workers in informal and cooperative settings to the collecting, sorting and recycling of plastics." This was the first time the essential work of waste pickers was acknowledged in any UN environmental resolution.
According to the Forum ERF Policy Portal, scholars have questioned whether the standard Mercator projection was a political tool that contributed to the scramble for Africa by various Western powers. By making the continent look small and ‘conquerable’, it could have played a role in the colonisation of Africa. The late 19th and 20th centuries saw the peak of colonialism where Western powers competed fiercely for colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
