- Lagos, Nigeria’s most populous state, generates nearly 5.5 million metric tons of solid waste every year.
- The state’s formal waste management system handles less than half of this, with homes and businesses improvising disposal of the rest wherever they can: an estimated 40% of this waste is recyclable.
- Pakam Technology Limited is one of several private companies trying to profitably retrieve a greater share of the roughly 6,000 metric tons of recyclable materials thrown away every day.
- Recycling companies say inconsistent enforcement of regulations is a major obstacle to improving recycling rates.
OJUELEGBA, Nigeria — On the bustling streets of this central Lagos neighborhood, it’s easy to buy a drink. Hawkers weave between buses and motorcycles with wheelbarrows of bottled water and canned beverages. Finding a bin for the empty container is much harder. Many end up on the ground.
Glass, cardboard, aluminum and — most commonly — plastic collect in piles at busy junctions and in open gutters, mixed with food waste and refuse from nearby shops and homes. Drains clog, and stagnant water lingers.
Bayo Adeolu, proud holder of a degree in plant biology from the University of Lagos, spent months tramping these same streets in search of work. He endured rejection after rejection, then tried selling used phones with a friend, but competition in this saturated market beat them back.
One afternoon, scrolling through social media, a post caught his eye. “Earn-As-You-Waste,” it read, advertising an information session for Pakam, a company promoting recycling as a source of income.
At the session, Pakam’s staff explained how participants could earn money by collecting recyclable waste from the company’s clients. Registered collectors, they said, would be trained to sort and weigh the waste, record this shabby bounty digitally, and transport the recovered materials to aggregation points.
The state of Lagos state generates nearly 5.5 million metric tons of solid waste every year, according to the state waste management authority — or roughly 15,000 metric tons a day. A 2024 World Bank study estimated that nearly 40% of this rubbish is recyclable — yet no more than 12% is retrieved from the waste stream. The same report calculated that more than 60% of the state’s solid waste is “unmanaged” — neither recycled nor collected for dumping in one of three official landfills that are fast reaching capacity
From street pickup to sorting hub
The initiative that caught Adeolu’s eye, Earn-As-You-Waste is one of several private efforts aiming to increase collection of recyclables in Lagos. The project’s operator, Pakam Technology Limited, says 18,000 people have made use of its mobile app to schedule collection of plastics, aluminum cans, cardboard and other recyclables by Pakam’s collectors.
Collecting and transporting recyclables in the crowded streets of areas like Ojuelegba is challenging. Pushing wheelbarrows or dragging sacks of crushed cans and plastic bottles through narrow lanes and congested markets, Adeolu and his fellow collectors draw impatient honks from passing motorists and good-natured abuse from pedestrians stepping around them.
From Ojuelegba, the waste is taken to Pakam’s aggregation hub in Maryland, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north, for further sorting before being sold to recycling companies.
“The idea is to make recycling accessible and motivate communities to adopt better waste disposal habits,” Pakam’s executive director, Olumide Ajayi, tells Mongabay. He says the initiative has recovered more than 170,000 metric tons of recyclable waste since it launched in 2021.
Recycling meets reality
Pakam’s army of waste pickers includes both collectors, who respond to requests sent in via the app, and others who gather recyclables independently from streets and neighborhoods.
“Our Earn-As-You-Waste program creates real earnings opportunities for Lagos youths whilst coaching them realistic skills in waste sorting, recycling, and logistics,” Ajayi tells Mongabay. “By participating in the program, young people gain experience that not only helps them earn a living today but also improves their employability for future jobs in the environmental and recycling sectors.”
But the work is poorly paid. According to the company, Pakam’s collectors earn around 35,000 naira per week, or about $30, which is less than half what other kinds of manual labor in Lagos would typically pay. But extremely high rates of youth unemployment mean many young people are still willing to take up the opportunity.
Adeolu says his earnings fluctuate depending on the volume and type of recyclables he collects each week. He estimates his average pay at around $35 per week, or double that on a good week.
Other challenges remain. Adeolu says some residents quickly lose interest, disappointed when their payout isn’t as high as they’d anticipated. Others accuse him of cheating them, especially when larger companies bypass him to deal directly with his customers.
“They don’t understand the costs involved,” Adeolu says.
Customers are paid based on the type and weight of the recyclables they hand over: the app allows both users and collectors to calculate the payment based on set rates per kilogram of plastic, aluminum or other scrap metal. According to Pakam’s management, households typically produce between $18 and $35 worth of recyclable materials per week.
Rita Idehai, founder of another company working on recycling in Lagos, Ecobarter, says much of the waste thrown away in Lagos could be recycled or turned into compost, but these potential resources are lost because of limited awareness and a lack of infrastructure.
“Recycling reduces the extent of waste that clogs our surroundings and drainages, in the end assisting towns to adapt to weather dangers,” Idehai tells Mongabay.
She says recycling could be an important strategy for reducing the growing burden of waste management on Lagos state authorities. Keeping plastic bottles and other recyclable materials out of drains would improve the city’s resistance to flooding, for instance.
Idehai, who is also president of the Recyclers Association of Nigeria, says inconsistent regulation holds back progress on retrieving recyclables: bans on single-use plastic or policy requiring separate bins for recyclable materials have been passed with much fanfare, but then poorly enforced, unevenly applied, or abandoned altogether. Nigeria has also suffered from runaway inflation in recent years, and Idehai says the rising cost of operations has forced many recyclers out of business.
Despite the difficulties, collectors like Adeolu press on with the relentless energy that Lagos is famous for.
“People in my community know that those wastes are money now,” he says. “I get calls from six or seven people asking me to pick up their waste every day.”
Banner image: Hawker with drinks, Lagos. Image by Robin Utrecht/UNSG via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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