Director at LASEPA, Mrs Adebayo Adedayo (left); UNIDO Field Coordinator, Charles Uzoma; Executive Director of FBRA, Agharese Sagay; Deputy Director in the Food and Chemicals Department, Chukwudi Nwabuisiak; Deputy Director, Solid Waste Management, Falmata Bukakolo; Director, Federal Ministry of Environment and National Focal Point, Omotunde Adeola; Polysmart Group Deputy MD, Mohammad Dubuk, and Principal Scientific Officer, Oluwaseyi Oke.
The centres have been operating ahead of their formal presentations.
The fight against plastic pollution in Lagos is gaining fresh momentum as the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), in partnership with the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), has established four new recyclables collection centres across the state.
The centres, located at Okun Ajah, Lakowe, Igando and Ikorodu, are expected to help keep plastic waste out of streets, drainage channels, waterways and landfills by collecting and directing discarded materials into the recycling value chain.
The initiative is part of a four-year UNIDO project funded by the Government of Japan to promote a plastic circular economy in Nigeria and strengthen the country’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework.
The centres have been operating ahead of their formal launch. Another facility has also been established in Abuja, bringing to five the number of collection centres supported under the project.
Speaking during an inspection of the facilities, Director, Pollution Control and Environmental Health Department, Federal Ministry of Environment and National Focal Point, Omotunde Adeola, said the centres would not only help reduce plastic pollution but also provide government with vital data for policymaking.
“We cannot manage what we cannot measure,” Adeola said, stressing the need to determine how much plastic waste is generated and how much is recovered and recycled.
She said the Federal Government was pursuing a “waste-to-wealth” approach and had supported recycling initiatives across states through grants and other interventions targeted at youths and women.
However, Adeola noted that recyclers still faced challenges, particularly the low value of recovered plastics, which she said could undermine the sustainability of small and medium-scale operators.
She called for stronger enforcement of waste segregation at source, urging households to separate plastics, paper, cans and other recyclable materials before disposal.
According to her, only about 10 per cent of plastic waste generated in Nigeria is currently recycled, highlighting the enormous investment opportunity in the sector.
Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) Director, Mrs Adebayo Adedayo, said Lagos had introduced policies aimed at making producers and users of plastic materials take greater responsibility for their recovery and recycling.
She said the state had made EPR mandatory for producers and was also working to integrate informal waste pickers and their associations into the formal waste management system.
At Polysmart Group, which operates one of the supported facilities, Group Deputy Managing Director of the firm, Mohammad Dubuk, said the company was expanding its collection network to increase the volume of plastic recovered from the environment.
Dubuk said Polysmart had the capacity to process about eight billion PET bottles annually and planned to increase its collection centres to 250 across Nigeria within the next 18 months, with the long-term goal of having at least one centre in every local government area.
He said the company was investing $60 million to expand its production facilities, with an additional $10 million to $15 million earmarked for the first phase of establishing collection centres nationwide.
UNIDO Field Coordinator, Charles Uzoma, said the centres were designed as pilot projects to demonstrate that a functional plastic circular economy could work in Nigeria and provide a model for wider replication.
He said UNIDO supplied equipment and tricycles, while private-sector partners provided facilities, land and operational support.
Uzoma said the strategic location of the centres would make it easier for residents and waste collectors to channel plastics into the recycling system before they reach drainage channels, waterways and the ocean.
He cited the Lakowe centre, located near restaurants, food vendors and other businesses that generate large volumes of beverage containers, as an example of how collection points could intercept plastic waste before it reaches the coastline.
He stressed that the success of the initiative would ultimately depend on households, businesses, government agencies and informal waste collectors embracing proper waste separation and recovery.
The stakeholders said expanding collection infrastructure would not only help clean up the environment but also create jobs and economic opportunities by turning discarded plastics into valuable industrial raw materials.
