This article introduces plastic recycling networks in Kolkata, India, as a case to illustrate the contradictory entanglement of economic and environmental change in urban informal contexts of the Global South. In light of the prevailing environmental critique of informal plastic recycling in India, this article discusses plastic recyclers’ environmental impact and contribution as well as the potential to enhance the environmental and economic performance of their business. Network and chain approaches in the emerging field of Environmental Economic Geography are combined with the notion of social metabolism to conceptualize the entanglement of environmental and economic processes as well as socio‐environmental inequalities entailed in recycling networks. The analysis reveals the impact that the heterogeneity and fluctuation of plastic waste supply has on the economic organization of recycling networks, giving rise to distinct forms of governance in its intermediate and down‐stream segments. Such an integrated perspective also serves to explain why environmental upgrading is hard to achieve under prevailing circumstances by plastic recyclers in Kolkata. Based on an assessment of the social and political conditions of informality under which plastic recyclers operate, the adoption of common assumptions about ecological modernization imbuing parts of Environmental Economic Geography is called into question.

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加尔各答的环境变化与非正式的塑料回收网络

本文介绍了印度加尔各答的塑料回收网络，以举例说明全球南方城市非正式环境中经济和环境变化的矛盾纠缠。鉴于印度普遍存在的对非正式塑料回收的环境批评，本文讨论了塑料回收商对环境的影响和贡献，以及增强其业务的环境和经济绩效的潜力。环境经济地理学新兴领域中的网络和链方法与社会新陈代谢的概念相结合，以概念化环境和经济过程的纠缠以及循环利用网络带来的社会环境不平等。该分析揭示了塑料废物供应的异质性和波动对回收网络的经济组织的影响，从而在其中下游部分产生了不同的治理形式。这种综合的观点还可以解释为什么加尔各答的塑料回收商在当前情况下很难实现环境升级。根据对塑料回收商运作的非正规性的社会和政治条件的评估，人们质疑采用有关环境现代化地理学的生态现代化的普遍假设。这种综合的观点还可以解释为什么加尔各答的塑料回收商在当前情况下很难实现环境升级。根据对塑料回收商运作的非正规性的社会和政治条件的评估，人们质疑采用有关环境现代化地理学的生态现代化的普遍假设。这种综合观点还可以解释为什么加尔各答的塑料回收商在当前情况下很难实现环境升级。根据对塑料回收商运作的非正规性的社会和政治条件的评估，人们质疑采用有关环境现代化地理学的生态现代化的普遍假设。