Recyclers have called on the Lagos State Government to ensure the proposed Plastic Waste Management Fund is transparently deployed to support informal waste pickers, recycling businesses, and youth-led green enterprises in the state.
They made the demand in separate interviews with The PUNCH, following the recent announcement by the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, on the establishment of the fund to be financed by producers and importers and managed collaboratively with Producer Responsibility Organisations.
The Councillor of the Waste Management Society of Nigeria, Dr Gbolahan Yusuf, citing concerns about accountability and inclusion, warned against mismanaging the fund by excluding the informal sector actors, especially waste pickers, also known as urban miners.
Yusuf explained, “There must be a structured and transparent plastic recycling fund governed by a multi-stakeholder board, including government, the private sector, academia, and civil society.”
He added that targeted support must be channelled to “waste pickers and the informal sector, research and innovation in local alternative materials, and recycling Small and Medium Enterprises and youth-led green enterprises.”
The WAMASON councillor also urged phased enforcement of the state’s ban on single-use plastics, beginning with government institutions and large corporate users before extending to informal and smaller-scale users, alongside public education and capacity building.
Echoing similar sentiments, former President of the Lagos Recyclers Association, Dr Femi Idowu-Adegoke, noted that while the government was moving in the right direction with the ban and the proposed fund, “implementation must be sincere and inclusive.”
He said, “There has to be a workable public-private partnership. There have to be incentives and green taxes for companies or manufacturers who are compliant. There has to be support for biodegradable technology and for those willing to change packaging to sustainable materials.”
Dr Adegoke stressed that the Lagos State government must learn from existing Extended Producer Responsibility models such as the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance, which, he noted, had used producer contributions to support “collection, advocacy, equipment, and infrastructure for recyclers and waste aggregators”.
Idowu-Adegoke opined that “If the waste management fund is deployed the same way (as existing EPR models), it can go a long way to support the state’s waste management goals, especially in underserved areas where waste collection is still suboptimal or absent.”
The former LAGRA president also called for the waste management fund to support scalable pilot innovations led by young entrepreneurs, such as app-based waste collection and community-based material recovery projects.
The stakeholders urged the state to align the fund’s implementation with national and state-level EPR policies, integrate environmental education, and ensure the fund drives long-term infrastructure development across the waste value chain.
They warned that without deliberate inclusion of grassroots recyclers and proper oversight, the fund could miss its goal of promoting a circular economy and tackling plastic pollution effectively.
