Temporal assessment of municipal solid waste management in Nigeria: Prospects for circular economy adoption

Abstract

This work reviewed the past and current status of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Nigeria towards offering a direction for the future. The past status shows that poor policy regimes, inadequate financing mechanisms, absence of waste data, and abysmal institutional arrangement negatively impacted the MSW management outcomes in the country. At present, few improvements recorded like an increase in the number of landfills, and public-private partnerships have been largely undermined by the continuous upsurge in the urban population and lack of corresponding growth in critical capacities in terms of economic resources, technological advancement, and state-of-the-art urban infrastructures. The current waste generated in cities in Nigeria is calculated as 66,828 tonnes per day (TPD) at the total urban population of 106 million, while the projected value for 2040 will be 125,473 TPD at the urban population of 199 million. The current work further discusses prospects and implications for circular economy adoption in solid waste valorization in Nigeria.

Full text

Review Article
Obiora B. Ezeudu*, Jonah C. Agunwamba, Uzochukwu C. Ugochukwu and
Tochukwu S. Ezeudu
Temporal assessment of municipal solid waste
management in Nigeria: prospects for circular
economy adoption
https://doi.org/10.1515/reveh-2020-0084
Received June 29, 2020; accepted September 15, 2020;
published online October 19, 2020
Abstract: This work reviewed the past and current status
of municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Nigeria
towards offering a direction for the future. The past status
shows that poor policy regimes, inadequate financing
mechanisms, absence of waste data, and abysmal institu-
tional arrangement negatively impacted the MSW man-
agement outcomes in the country. At present, few
improvements recorded like an increase in the number of
landfills, and public-private partnerships have been
largely undermined by the continuous upsurge in the
urban population and lack of corresponding growth in
critical capacities in terms of economic resources, tech-
nological advancement, and state-of-the-art urban in-
frastructures. The current waste generated in cities in
Nigeria is calculated as 66,828 tonnes per day (TPD) at the
total urban population of 106 million, while the projected
value for 2040 will be 125,473 TPD at the urban population
of 199 million. The current work further discusses pros-
pects and implications for circular economy adoption in
solid waste valorization in Nigeria.
Keywords: circular economy; municipal solid waste;
Nigeria; urban development; waste management.
Introduction
Urban cities around the world are structured in a way that a
large number of people are concentrated in a localized area
of land. As such, they often depend on the importation of
foodstuffs and other necessities of life from far distances as
a supplement for other commodities that come from the
countryside [1]. The city’s environment already saturated
with developmental activities cannot properly absorb,
dilute, or disperse the generated waste from the use of
these materials. This makes the streets to be constantly
flooded with used and discarded items which are known as
“urban solid waste”or “municipal solid waste”(MSW). The
potential threat posed by this waste on the environment
and public health has made it necessary for city authorities
to devise means for its management. Goals 6, 11, and 12 of
the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Agenda
2030 captured an increase in waste recycling and global
safe reuse; paying special attention to MSW management,
and ensuring sustainable production and consumption
patterns respectively [2]. In line with the concept of sus-
tainable development that has also served as a parameter
for assessing the sustainability of cities and society, it is
often perceived to be that any city or society that cannot
properly manage its solid waste cannot also manage other
more complex services such as health, transportation, or
communication [3]. The increasing global population and
the resultant rise in the anthropogenic activities have
triggered a surge in man’s quest for finished consumer
goods and hence the sophisticated dynamics in the vari-
ants of waste being generated by communities. In
response, perspectives and methods of MSW management
have also evolved. This is because societies have respon-
ded to these changes through policies, institutions, and
methodological approaches in rhythm with developments
in science, technology, and globalization [4, 5]. In essence,
the extent to which any society can respond to the changes
in waste dynamics will largely depend on its characterizing
*Corresponding author: Obiora B. Ezeudu, SHELL Centre for
Environmental Management and Control, University of Nigeria, Enugu
Campus, 410001, Enugu, Nigeria, Phone: +234 08060828002,
E-mail: obiezeudu@yahoo.com
Jonah C. Agunwamba, SHELL Centre for Environmental Management
and Control, University of Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria; and Department of
Civil Engineering, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria
Uzochukwu C. Ugochukwu, SHELL Centre for Environmental
Management and Control, University of Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria
Tochukwu S. Ezeudu, Institute for Development Studies, University of
Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria
Rev Environ Health 2020; ▪▪▪(▪▪▪): 20200084

features in terms of economy, social, political, culture, and
other critical capacities. High-income countries with
higher capacities have acted more proactively compared to
low and middle-income countries. This easily explains why
waste-to-energy technologies are more in the global north
than in the south [6–8].
Waste management involves the minimization,
collection, storage, transportation, treatment, recycling,
and disposal processes [3, 9]. Based on contextual condi-
tions, societies tend to adopt a combination of these
methods in managing their MSW. The waste collection
involves the processes of retrieving the discarded materials
from the generating sources. The sources could include
households, institutions, commercial establishments,
markets, etc. To optimize resources, this waste could be
stored in designated areas before transportation. Trucks
and vehicular equipment are used to transport them to the
designated places for onward treatment or recycling. The
final process is waste disposal which involves the appli-
cation of a single or combination of proven scientific
methods. The commonly practiced disposal methods
include landfilling, incineration, anaerobic digestion, and
composting. The procedures, economic and environmental
benefits of each method in Nigeria’s context have been
discussed in [10, 11]. Turning away from the perspective
that views solid waste as a problematic material that needs
to be properly discarded to avoid harming the human and
the environment, circular economy has been adopted and
implemented as a promising way for solid waste valoriza-
tion. In its theory and practice, it has shown evidence of
offering more prospects as it proposes a restorative and
regenerative approach to waste management [12, 13].
Nigeria is a developing country located on the west
coast of Africa with a land area of 924,000 km2. Nigeria’s
population has witnessed outrageous growth in the last
few decades. In exact terms, the country’s population rose
from 45 million in 1960 to 97 million in 1991 and has been
approximated at 195 million in 2018 [14]. Consequently,
many urban and urbanizing areas are continuously
emerging with the rate of population growth and urbani-
zation [15]. The aftermath is the rise in the quantity of MSW
disposed of many generating units. In contrast, Nigeria is
not growing in critical capacities such as economic re-
sources, social infrastructure, and advanced technology
towards positioning itself in solving the emerging waste
challenges. For this reason, the country waste managers
need to explore other value reclamation measures such as
circular economy principles in solving its waste problems.
In this work, therefore, we reviewed the past and pre-
sent status of MSW management in Nigeria, to understand
how it has been approached, and the contributions of
institutions, policies, financing, and other miscellaneous
development. We further offer critical discussions on the
prospects and challenges for circular economy adoption
and implementation. For Nigeria to make any remarkable
progress towards managing its urban solid waste, there is a
great need to review and analyze the past and present sit-
uations. The current work will lend a helping hand to the
relevant authorities in charting a new course and finding a
sustainable solution for the country’s waste management
problems.
Material and methods
We searched Google scholar –which is the most compre-
hensive research database –for academic literature on
MSW management in Nigeria. Other relevant grey publi-
cations such as policy briefs, project documents of
agencies, government and international agency’s publi-
cations were also searched for. The agencies’documents
include World Bank [3, 16], United Nations Environment
Program (UNEP) [17, 18], United Nations University, Insti-
tute for Advanced Sustainability Study [19], Basel
Convention [20, 21], United Nations Human Settlements
Programme (UN-Habitat) [22], Nigerian Communications
Commission (NCC) [23], National Environmental Standards
and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) [24] and
International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) [6, 25].
Further documents included in the review were sourced
from the reference lists of these materials. The keywords for
the search include “waste management”,“municipal solid
waste”,“municipal solid waste management”,“urban
solid waste”,“waste minimization”,“waste composition”,
“waste generation”,“waste recycling’,“e-waste manage-
ment”,“waste characterization”, and “waste management
policy”. All search terms were conducted with the inclu-
sion of “in Nigeria”.
Retrieved records from the search were exported to
Microsoft word and were divided into two periods (in a
table), the ones published before 1999 were mainly
considered in the context of the past as they are useful in
providing insight on the past status of MSW management
in Nigeria. While the materials published after 1999 (2000–
2019) were analyzed towards understanding the present
status. The reason for the temporal division is because
Nigeria has been on the military rule until 1999 and the
period was characterized by several political and economic
instability and sanctions from international communities,
which likely undermined the evolution and development
of basic policy-making and institution development in the
2Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

country [26]. In essence, what seems like consistency in
democratic governance and policymaking in Nigeria star-
ted in May 1999. Due to these reasons, the content, type,
and variant of documents available at these distinctive
periods will vary.
Two of the authors participated in the screening/se-
lection of material while the two other authors indepen-
dently examined the screening process to resolve areas of
disagreements and to ensure consistency. We first
expunged duplicate records and irrelevant materials. At
the second stage of the record screening, we excluded
materials based on the following criteria (i) Those that do
not report an outcome of interest in any of the components
of the MSW management system which include waste
minimization, waste generation, waste composition, waste
disposal, e-waste management, waste recycling, waste
resource recovery, waste characterization, and waste
management policy. (ii) We excluded articles from journals
not indexed in SCOPUS, Web of Science, and/or Pubmed to
avoid including predatory journals. Only materials pub-
lished in English were considered. The process of the
literature selection/review and number of records consid-
ered at each stage is further shown in the PRISMA flow
chart (Figure 1), while the complete list of materials
considered/included in the study is available as supple-
mentary material.
The selected materials were reviewed, analyzed, and
categorized to answer the following questions:
(i) What is the global status of MSW management?
(ii) What is the status of MSW in Nigeria before the last
two decades?
(iii) What is the present state of MSW in Nigeria?
(iv) What are the institutional and policy landscapes
concerning solid waste management in Nigeria?
(v) What is the financing mechanism for MSW in Nigeria?
(vi) What are the future challenges and implications of
circular economy adoption in solid waste valorization
in Nigeria?
Because MSW management is interdisciplinary in scope
that covers many fields of study such as engineering,
development studies, management, and social sciences,
the range of materials collected include both qualitative
and quantitative literature. We adopted a mixed studies
review as recommended by [27].
Results
Global status of solid waste management: an
overview
Exponential growth in the global population and the par-
allel rapid industrialization has caused people to migrate
from rural to urban cities in search of greener pastures,
which lead to generating a high amount of MSW [28, 29].
Solid waste is inextricably linked to urbanization, and
economic development [3, 8]. The explanation is that
growth in urbanization leads to growth in economic wealth
and as standards of living and disposable income increase,
consumption of goods and services increases which results
in a corresponding increase in the quantity of waste
generated [30]. Solid waste is associated more with the
urban areas since waste generation is always lower in rural
areas. This is not difficult to understand, since rural
dwellers are poorer in the average, purchase fewer finished
consumer products, and have more waste pickers who
recover and recycle wastes at generating points, collection,
and disposal sites. MSW, in general, includes degradable
and non-degradable waste streams such as paper, food
leftover, plastics, textiles, e-waste, ceramics, walled yard
waste, etc. The city waste managers are continuously faced
with an enormous task of collecting and finding appro-
priate destinations for final disposal of these wastes in a
manner that the environment and public health will not be
compromised.
Figure 1: PRISMA Flow chart for the literature selection.
Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria 3

Today, more people are living in urban cities around
the globe, generating about 1.3 billion tonnes of waste per
annum at the rate of 1.2 kg/capita/day. Projections have it
that by 2025, about 4.3 billion people will be residing in the
world’s urban areas generating 2.2 billion tons of solid
waste per annum. The global costs of managing this waste
will also rise from the current annual figure of
$205.4 billion to $374.5 billion by 2025 [3]. In low and
middle-income countries, the cost of waste collection is
about 80–90% of the municipality’s waste management
annual budgets, yet the services are far from being efficient
and often limited to visibility areas. While less than 10% is
spent in high-income countries with more efficient service
delivery [8, 18, 22]. Global state-of-the-art solid waste
management includes the following methods; source
reduction (minimization), collection, recycling, compost-
ing, incineration, and landfilling/dumping. Waste reduc-
tion from the generation sources is usually achieved
through (i) organized education programs that emphasize,
reduce, reuse, and recycle (ii) implementation of extended
producer responsibility, and (iii) increased attention on
cleaner production. These practices are found more in
high-income countries than in low and middle-income
countries.
In the high-income countries, waste collection rates
are generally higher at about 90%, with enhanced tech-
nology such as compactor trucks, highly mechanized ve-
hicles, and transfer stations [3]. They have an efficient
recycling system, recyclable material collection services,
high technology sorting, waste processing facilities, formal
regulations, and long-term recycling planning. Waste
composting is a more popular practice both at the house-
hold level and large-scale facilities. The generated waste
streams contain lesser compostable, odor control is a crit-
ical consideration while anaerobic digestion is increas-
ingly more common. Incineration of waste is largely
regulated, prohibited in areas with high land costs, and
low availability of lands (e.g., Japan). Incinerators are
constructed with environmentally controlled consider-
ations and energy retrieval systems, with the generated
emissions regulated and monitored by laws. The highest
grade of landfills is available in the form of sanitary/
engineered landfills, built with a combination of liners,
leak detection devices, leachate collection systems, biogas
collection, and treatment technologies. Landfill sites are
reused after closure for golf courses and parks [31]. Above
all, there is a decline in waste landfilling in high-income
countries induced by advanced regulations that encourage
waste reduction and recycling.
However, in low and middle-income countries, the
degree of waste separation from the source is poor. Waste is
not segregated or sorted before disposal, except a few
materials that are removed by the informal waste pickers.
Collections schemes are not differentiated by the type of
waste generators as more attention is placed in households
than commercial places and institutions. Albeit, the
dominant recycling practices are through unorganized
informal waste pickers, the rate of recycling seems quite
high due to the local market and industries that make de-
mands on recyclables [32, 33]. Recycling markets are
grossly unregulated, replete with price fluctuations, and
long chains of middlemen [34]. Lack of markets and poor
knowledge hinders adoptions of composting as waste
handling techniques even in the face of the fact that the
waste streams are more of compostable contents [35].
Incineration technologies which are about three times the
cost of landfilling per tonne of waste are not common in
these areas. Poor technical knowledge, high moisture
content waste, and a huge percentage of inerts further
make incineration not feasibly common in the regions [8,
10, 18]. Landfills are constructed as low-technology sites,
unregulated, pollutes the underground water sources,
nearby surface water bodies, and human settlements [25,
31]. Landfill-disposed wastes often contain hazardous
substances and are regularly burnt without precaution. As
a result of the unmitigated increase in waste generation, an
increase in landfilling is expected in the short term in low
and middle-income countries [8]. The environmental
health implication of inefficient solid waste management
schemes in low and middle-income countries is summa-
rized as (i) health hazards from uncollected waste (ii)
health hazards from collected but poorly disposed of waste
and (iii) the economic/environmental burden of waste
disposal on towns and cities [36].
The past and current approaches to MSW
management in Nigeria
Before 1999
There has been an effort towards urban environmental
management in Nigeria even at the onset of British rule in
the 1900s through colonial bye-laws [37]. These efforts also
suffixed stronger in the 1979 constitution that emphasized
clearance of refuge, management of liquid and solid waste
in abattoirs, residential homes, and streets [38].The major
landmark in environmental effort in Nigeria happened in
1988 with the establishment of the Federal Environmental
Protection Agency (FEPA) on December 30th,1988 through
military decree. This event has been the center of major
4Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

discussions on environmental management in Nigeria
based on the available literature before 1999. FEPA’s
establishment heralded the formation of the maiden na-
tional policy on the environment [39]. The key objectives of
this policy instrument were summarized by FEPA [24] as
(i) to secure for all Nigerians an environmental quality
adequate for their health and well-being (ii) to raise public
awareness towards promoting understanding of the
essential linkages between the environment and develop-
ment (iii) to encourage individual and community partici-
pation in environmental protection and improvement
efforts. The section on solid waste management stipulated
specific actions which include; collection and disposal of
solid waste in an environmentally sustainable manner,
setting up waste laws, regulation and standards, and their
enforcement, encouraging public participation, environ-
mental monitoring, and imposing penalties on offenders to
deter defaulting [24].
However, the FEPA solid waste guideline was hugely
faulty as it did not articulately view waste management as a
complex issue that requires careful considerations of the
waste life cycle by integrating waste collection, trans-
portation, treatment, recycle, and disposal. Rather because
of the overzealousness of the then Nigerian-led military
government that wanted only to enforce the street clean-
liness, greater emphasis was laid more on the waste
collection and disposal at all costs [37, 39]. There were no
clearly laid down modalities on how other parts of the
waste management system such as treatment, recycling,
and resource recovery should be handled. This city
cleanliness-induced zeal further prompted the government
to institute the National Sanitation day that holds on every
last Saturday of the month. On this day, beginning from 7 to
10 am, residents are mandated by law to stay at home and
clean up their premises. To further incentivize this law,
there was an introduction of a cash reward of one million
naira to the cleanest state by the federal government.
Nevertheless, the width and breadth of other essential
elements that are associated with the solid waste handling
and management such as waste characterization, data
collection on generation, quantity documentation of
streams of waste generated, disposal modalities, social and
economics of waste management, landfill management
and specification for landfill construction were never
captured in the solid waste management policy. The waste
management disposal practices commonly reported dur-
ing the period under review include open dumping,
burning of waste at the dumpsites, dumping of waste at the
erosion sites (as erosion control measures), and even water
bodies [40–42]. The open dumping/burning of waste is
discredited as a waste disposal technique because it results
in uneconomical use of available space, allows uncon-
trolled access to waste pickers, animals, and flies and most
times unpleasant and hazardous smoke emanate from
slow-burning fires [43]. Open waste dump serves as a
breeding hood for dangerous disease-causing vectors in
addition to the release of hazardous substances in the air
and soil. While the open burning of waste leads to the
uncontrolled discharge of dangerous gases to the atmo-
spheric environment such as oxides of sulfur (SOx), oxides
of nitrogen (NOx), and particulate matter which all poses a
public health risk. A survey conducted by the federal office
of statistics in 1978 shows that about 52% of urban dwellers
have no known access to an authorized dumping ground
[41]. Consequently, indiscriminate dumping of wastes by
the roadsides, gutters, beneath the bridges, and at the
unauthorized sites were reported in the locations across
the country [44, 45]. Only two known sanitary landfills
were reported in the country during this period [39].
Because of the poor availability of funds, at the state
levels, the responsible agencies did not have enough
trucks/vehicles, and equipment for waste transportation
[16, 46]. The few available ones had the problem of un-
available spare parts and were poorly maintained [45]. On
an ad-hoc basis, private truck owners were contracted
without any documented formal contracts and monitoring
mechanisms [46]. It was even reported that sometimes
during the National Sanitation Day, the sanitation law of-
fenders were forced to transport waste with their vehicles
as punishment [47]. Waste was therefore not collected on
time, city waste bins were overfilled and sometimes ob-
structs traffics. Piling up of solid waste leads to the prolif-
eration of disease-carrying vectors which increases the risk
of diseases [43]. As there was an absence of guidelines on
waste stream characteristics, certain classes of waste that
are not qualified as MSW usually find their way in the mix
of collected waste [48]. For instance, the waste mix usually
contains human excreta because of lack of sanitation fa-
cilities in many households [43], hazardous waste from
industries were also a regular component in the waste mix
due to the absence of streamlined modalities for industrial
waste monitoring and disposal techniques. Waste mini-
mization did not also reflect on the national solid waste
management policy, therefore manufacturers and im-
porters of goods never considered means of waste mini-
mization in their processes, thus products were never
designed/imported to reduce environmental impacts.
Neither was there adequate environmental awareness on
the need for households and institutions to engage in
practices that would ensure generation of less waste, or the
masses to patronize environmentally friendly products
[39]. The most cogent explanation for these anomalies
Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria 5

seems to be that economic growth had been mainly
emphasized in the country’s national development plan
than environmental protection [37].
Informal waste pickers had been in operation in
Nigeria as of the period but were not properly organized or
supported by the government or any institution. This is
opposed to what was obtainable in other low and middle-
income countries of the globe at this period. In the early
1990s, it was already reported that in Latin America,
informal waste recycling were been promoted through the
formation of small enterprises, or cooperatives [43]. For
example, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Landfill waste pickers
as at this time, were organized into a recycling cooperative
that obtained a concession arrangement to operate on city
landfills. Also in Medellin, Colombia, they were organized
into small firms for collecting commercial waste and for
door-to-door purchasing of recyclables. In both cases
mentioned, the municipalities were instrumental in the
creation of the firms and providing necessary logistics such
as finance and training [43]. The need to regulate the ac-
tivities of informal waste recyclers is crucial due to the
associated environmental health risk. Informal e-waste
recycling, for instance, though plays a significant role in
job and income creation in low and middle-income coun-
tries, it also involves the application of some rudimentary
practices prone to human health risk exposures. Burning
cables and plastic coating to recover valuable copper
causes the release of harmful polyvinyl chloride, dioxins,
furans, brominated flame retardants, and polycyclic aro-
matic hydrocarbons to the environment [49]. Using acid
baths to recover precious metals without protective
clothing exposes the recycler to the risk of chemical injury.
Contamination from e-waste is believed to be a significant
contributor to adverse health impacts in the communities
where informal recycling takes place and the most
vulnerable are women and children [50]. Moreover, the
class of people that participate in the informal waste
picking being dominated by the poor and low-income
population is most likely to have lesser access to health
care facilities and improved hygienic conditions [51].
Further, more attention was paid to the waste collec-
tion than disposal, as there were no policies on specific
modes of waste disposal. There were no incinerators,
anaerobic digestion methods were never practiced or
adopted, recycling and resource recovery were voluntarily
practiced by households usually induced by poverty
without any form of incentives [16, 45]. Poverty and quest
to make a living, as a motivating factor for urban waste
picking simply signifies that the larger public perception of
recycling was based on economic means and not based on
waste management and environmental quality promotion.
Of course, this was the dominant notion across most low
and middle-income countries at the period under review
[43, 52].
1999 to date
Nigeria returned to civil rule on May, 29th 1999 following
the transfer of political power from military to civilian. The
transition in government has somehow fostered economic
growth such that, the country has been consistently rated
among the largest economy in Africa since 2004 [26]. This
economic growth as expected triggered growth in urbani-
zation and corresponding growth in the general and urban
populations. The country’s total population grew from
88 million in 1991 to 140 million in 2006, was approxi-
mately quoted at 195 million people in 2018, and projected
to hit 441 million by 2050 [14]. While the urban areas have
also recorded an extraordinary high annual growth rate of
5–10% [15]. Specifically speaking, as at 1995, there were
only 78 cities in Nigeria with a population of over 100,000
people compared to currently that, seven cities are now
with a population of over one million, 80 cities have a
population between 100, 000 and one million while
another 248 cities have 10,000–100,000 people [53].
The increase in the urban population has resulted in a
rise in the quantity of solid waste that is being generated
and disposed of across Nigeria. The country’s perceived
economic growth at the period under review has been
largely undermined by the upsurge in population, hence
there was no significant improvement in the country’s
critical infrastructure, resources, and technology towards
tackling the problems of the increasing amount of solid
waste. To date, there is still no government’s nationally
documented data on solid waste management in Nigeria.
However, there is a significant number of case study
research on cities, states, and in a few occasions’in-
stitutions on solid waste management in Nigeria [11, 30,
54–57]. Only a few academic reports have done a national-
scale analysis of the status of solid waste management in
Nigeria [9, 58–61]. The key elements of the findings on the
status of MSW management in Nigeria within this period
are summarized in what follows:
Waste generation and composition –Several factors
influence the waste generation and quantities such as in-
come, population, culture, geographical location, social
behavior, industrial production, markets for waste mate-
rials, and climatic conditions [56, 59]. Waste compositions
and quantities generated in Nigeria locations vary ac-
cording to these factors as shown in Table 1, But the com-
mon pattern identified is that organic component is usually
high and varies from 15 to 79.1% and the generation rate
6Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

was higher in urban areas than in the semi-urban area,
which aligns with the assertion that increase in socio-
economic status/income instigates an increase in waste
generation rate [3]. Figure 2 shows that the waste genera-
tion rate in Nigeria varies from 0.13 kg/Capita/day in
Ogbomosho in 2007 [62] to 1.04 kg/Capita/day in Ogbe-
Ijoh, Delta state in 2015 [63].
Waste management data –Accurate and comprehen-
sive data mining and documentation on specific waste
stream characteristics is a critical step towards proffering
sustainable solutions to solid waste management [18, 72]. It
aids optimal MSW planning and allocation of resources.
There is no available data on the quantity or generation
rate of solid waste in Nigeria documented for the use by
waste management authorities in the federal, state, or local
governments. But in the period under review, several ac-
ademic research efforts have been done on waste charac-
terization on several locations of Nigeria including
institutions [54–57]. Table 1 is the list of works in Nigeria’s
location and the documented waste stream characteristics.
The absence of the officially collected data has resulted in
the quantity of waste generated surpassing the ability of
the agencies to collect for disposal. Hence untimely waste
evacuation, overfilled city waste collection bin, and
indiscriminate dumping of waste are still common in
Nigeria [54, 73].
Waste collection –Waste collection means the collec-
tion of waste from the point of generation (household, in-
stitutions, and commercial areas) for onward movement to
disposal and treatment sites. Because of the absence of
nationally collected waste data in Nigeria, the waste
collection rate cannot be reliably ascertained. World Bank
report of 2012 on the review of global solid waste manage-
ment suggested that the waste collection rate in the African
low-income countries (including Nigeria) is 41–46% [3].
The commonly identified method of solid waste collection
Table :Waste characteristics and component in Nigeria.
Reference City Land area, KmPopulation Waste fraction, %
Organic Paper Plastic Metal Glass Textile Recyclable
[] Abuja  , ......–
[] Makurdi  , –..–..–..–..–..–. –
[] Unilag . ,      
[] Ogbomosho  , .....
[] Awka  , . . .
[] Uyo  , .....
[] Lagos  ,,    
[] Ogbe-Ijoh  
[] Akure  ,  .....
[] Port-Harcourt  ,, ., 
[] Nsukka . ,      
[] Onitsha  ,  .....
[] Benin  ,,      ––
[] Zaria  , .,.
[] Maiduguri  , .... .
Figure 2: Waste generation rates in Nigerian
cities
Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria 7

in municipalities include: house-to-house, community
bins, curbside pick-up, self-delivered, and delegated or
contracted service [58, 74]. House-to house waste collection
has been reported in some high-income areas in Nigerian
major cities [30, 75, 76], but what is prevalently practiced in
Nigeria, is a self-delivered to community bins method [74,
76]. Collection services do not get to some unplanned areas
of the urban cities such as slums, shanties, and ghettos due
to poor street networks that make it difficult to access [71,
76, 78]. In a place like Kano, a majorNigeria city, 20% waste
service coverage was reported [30]. While multiple collec-
tion methods have been reported in Lagos, the most
commercialized city of Nigeria [79]
Waste minimization –To date, waste minimization has
not been extensively adopted in Nigeria. Conceptual
planning to generate less waste by harmonizing city
development planning and management with waste gen-
eration is yet to be extensively embraced throughout the
country’s waste management landscape [80, 81]. The
practice exists only in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, where
the Abuja Environmental Protection Board Act on solid
waste control/Environmental monitoring of 2005, stipu-
lates that all proponent of major projects within the capital
city’s territory must submit to the Abuja Environmental
Protection Board (AEPB), a detailed proposal containing
the nature and scope of the project together with the
location and address [81]. The proponent is also expected
to submit the details of the activities to be carried on and
other relevant information. The board subjects the pro-
posal to scrutiny factoring the anticipated waste stream to
be generated before making a decision [82]. The statutory
practice has helped the city authorities to know where, how
much and type of waste being generated for optimally
allocation of resources, assessment of relevant technolo-
gies, and also to decide on the best waste management
approach.
E-waste –There is a heightening understanding that
electronic waste embodies new and complex hazardous
materials that are harmful to the environment and human
health [18]. The high rate of production and disposal of
electronic devices are exasperated by their limited life-
spans which mount pressure for an increase in the pro-
duction and resultant increase in the volume of e-waste
generated [83]. The telecommunication industrial revolu-
tion in Nigeria started in 2001 after the licensing of four
digital mobiles operators through auction by the federal
government. By 2006, Nigeria was already rated among the
fastest growing telecommunication industry in the world
[84]. This may have triggered the e-waste problem in
Nigeria as well [13, 85]. Over 219,000 tons of e-waste was
reportedly generated in Nigeria, in 2014 [19]. A huge
proportion of this waste was recycled and/or usually pro-
cessed by informal industries under the most rudimentary
processes [20, 21]. So to say, Nigeria has a viable informal
recycling sector for e-waste which in overall, may have
been employed more than 100,000 people [17]. They collect
and disassemble e-waste by hand to retrieve the saleable
parts. The other parts with no economic value are normally
dumped along with the MSW or burnt [17]. One major factor
that emerged in the period under review is that the devel-
opment in telecommunication in Nigeria to a reasonable
extent depends on refurbished or what is called “second-
hand”electrical and electronic equipment [85]. In Lagos,
for instance, there are approximately 5,500 small enter-
prises that specialize in refurbishing and marketing used
electrical and electronics products [21]. The electronics
refurbishing sector in Lagos is also hinted to have trans-
formed into a regional hub that does not only serve Nigeria
with second-hand products but also the neighboring West
and East African countries [21]. 75% of the second-hand/
refurbished electronics imported into the country are either
toxic, non-reparable, or obsolete and are moved straight to
dumpsites, landfills, and/or dismantling outfits [17, 85].
The apparent potential health and environmental hazard
posed by indiscriminate disposal of e-waste in the country
prompted the NCC, a statutory government agency charged
with the responsibility of overseeing the industry to issue a
Nigerian Communication Industry E-waste regulation in
2018 [23]. This policy instrument is the first attempt at
specifying the responsibility of each player in the e-waste
generation, collection, and disposal across the country,
which include manufacturers, importers, consumers, re-
cyclers, vendors, bulk consumers, etc. [13, 23]
Waste disposal –Dumping of waste indiscriminately at
the erosion sites, drainages, and other unauthorized areas
have continued to date. The current waste disposal status
was succinctly captured by [59] as;
‘The need to dispose of waste is so pressing that people dump their
waste anywhere as long as they can get away with it. Sections of
roads cordoned off by waste, railways entirely overtaken by heaps
of waste, drainage channels completely obliterated by waste, and
water bodies rendered useless by decades of waste dumping are
common features of most Nigerian cities’
Waste incineration was reported in Nigeria for healthcare
waste, though it was adopted by only a few health facilities
[58, 86]. Composting is practiced only at the backyards,
while open dumping of refuse is the most dominantly
practiced across the country.
Recycling and resource recovery –Waste recycling and
resource recovery doubles as a waste handling techniques
and as an acceptable means for retrieving a value from
8Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

waste. In the low and middle-income countries’context, it
is an activity mostly practiced by the urban poor and often
tagged informal activities or the ‘informal waste manage-
ment sector’. Informal waste picking and sorting by scav-
engers have been tipped as a prime contributor to the
urban informal economy and play important roles in the
management of urban solid waste [32, 33]. Unlike in the
past when it was grossly associated with stigma, it is
currently a major element considered in circular economy
proposals for most low and middle-income countries [12,
13]. These uncontrolled practices represent a risk for the
health of the workers and the population living in neigh-
boring of the sites. Their inclusion in a sound circular
economy needs the implementation of actions to create
safe recycling operations and to minimize the emissions of
contaminants in the environment. In Nigeria, there are
clear indications that the formal recycling of MSW does not
still exist and prior attempts by the government to establish
recycling programs on solid waste have been unsuccessful
[87]. However, the informal waste recycling is still neither
organized nor regulated in Nigeria and was not recognized
in the policy guideline of the federal government released
in 2005. It is therefore entirely a voluntary practice in
Nigeria. In the period under review, the operating system
has improved with reports on a reduced influence of mid-
dlemen. Middlemen in the waste picking value chain are
businessmen that bulk-purchase the picked recyclables
from the waste pickers. Because they have the resources to
mop-up the recyclables in a quantity that the industry can
purchase, they wield more influence in the recyclable
waste market and often fix prices and set transaction
conditions that are detrimental to the interest of the poor
waste pickers.
The waste operators have organized themselves into
small associations and unions in Abuja, while in Lagos,
they have come together to register cooperatives to have
better bargains and minimize the exploitation from mid-
dlemen. But the notable associations are the ones that deal
mainly in metal, plastic, and electronic waste. No known
union or association currently exists for other variants of
waste recyclables such as paper [81].
Private-public partnership –Private-public partnership
(PPP) is a variant of policy system that brings together both
private and public entities to synergize resources,
manpower, and ideas towards solving societal problems. It
was first introduced in waste management in Nigeria by the
Lagos state government in 1997 [88, 89]. By the millen-
nium, the policy model has been adopted in some other
cities in Nigeria and elsewhere in the low and middle-
income locations [89]. The commonly identified media for
financing the PPP projects in Nigeria include multilateral
agencies, stock exchange market bonds, bank loans, and
external donors. It was reported that in Lagos, private
service providers collect waste from households for
disposal at a fee. The services were adjudged better in areas
of consistency, flexibility, affordability, coverage, and
accessibility while at the other Nigerian locations, unwill-
ingness to pay for the services and poor performance of the
program was reported [90, 91]
Landfilling –Landfill remains a common and one of the
cheapest methods acceptable for municipal waste man-
agement in most parts of the world [25, 28]. It is a critical
component of MSW management since all other means of
waste treatment eventually produce residues that must be
disposed of through landfilling [3]. The number of landfills
in Nigeria has increased over time though they are still only
available in major cities such as Lagos, Abuja, Onitsha, etc.
The vast majority of urban areas does not still have a
landfill and hence practice open dumping of refuse [30, 58,
77]. However, analyses on landfill standards conducted
recently have shown that most of the landfills in Nigeria are
far from meeting the basic requirements towards delivering
environmental, economic, and other social benefits [31].
Studies have classified landfills according to various pa-
rameters such as waste deposit types, types of liners used,
the design and construction protocols, and the landfill
operation and practices [31, 92]. Evaluating Nigeria’s
landfill experience on the foregoing criteria shows that out
of 10 landfill sites identified, eight are categorized at the
lowest levels.
Solid waste management policies and
institutional landscape in Nigeria –past, and
present
Nigeria’s earliest effort towards MSW management by way
of policies and institutions were mainly motivated by the
need to protect the environment. As a result of this, waste
management laws were made with a focus on safeguarding
public health and environmental components of water,
land, and air. The public health Act of 1917 (which was
amended as the Public health Act of 1958) is one of the
earliest formative policies on environmental health pro-
tection in Nigeria [38]. It contained laws on the regulation
of abattoir hygiene, slaughtering of animals, night soil
handling, noise and odor control, and general waste
management [37].
The major loophole in these formative policies is that
they were mainly created as qualitative edits on which its
enforcement was dependent. The laws were devoid of clear
scientific standards and criteria. For example, general
Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria 9

cleanliness of the urban environments was emphasized
through adequate waste collection and disposal without a
stipulated guideline on landfill construction and
operation.
However, the literature suggests that the creation of
FEPA was the government’s reactive actions to secret
dumping of toxic waste in Koko Port (Bendel State) now
Delta state in May 1988 by foreign parties [93]. The advent
of FEPA, therefore, came with the immediate establish-
ment of national guidelines on environment and health
quality such as effluent discharge limit, toxic waste crim-
inal act, facility, and premises’inspections, and waste
management policy. FEPA Act of 1988 equally empowered
the state and local governments to establish their envi-
ronmental protection agencies to oversee the affairs of
environmental protection, including waste management at
the state levels. This development has often been regarded
as the foremost government’s attempt to give coherence
and visibility to environmental issues in Nigeria. However,
the federal ministry of environment was created in 1999 by
merging FEPA and other key environmental agencies and
institutions. The newly created ministry assumed the re-
sponsibility of administering environmental issues in
Nigeria including solid waste management, but with
distinctive functions in setting policy guidelines on how
key environmental issues are to be approached in Nigeria.
But the implementation of the policies is the responsibility
of state governments through various state ministries of
environment, states independent waste management au-
thorities, and local government councils. The first guide-
line on solid waste management in Nigeria was released in
2005. This policy document has little improvement from
the previous FEPA policy guideline. It is still made up of
qualitative laws. In 2007, however, the NESREA was
created as a parastatal under the federal environment
ministry through the act of parliament. The NESREA was
established to concentrate on setting up national envi-
ronmental quality guidelines, monitoring procedures, and
enforcement. This role largely conflicts the already existing
institutional protocols that empowered the state govern-
ment over environmental matters in their respective state.
Further conflicts also suffixed with the recent creation of
parallel industrial e-waste guidelines by NCC in 2018, as
mentioned in the foregoing section.
The state governments through their various house of
assemblies make laws on solid waste management. These
laws on occasion aim at downplaying the role of municipal
councils or at creating a particular area of jurisdiction that
derogates the powers of local government [94]. In principle,
the local governments (municipal councils) are responsible
for solid waste management in the municipalities, but
because, in Nigeria, local governments are not fully auton-
omous and such lack financial and political independence
to perform this function, solid waste management in Nigeria
is, therefore, implemented by the state governments.
Financing mechanism for solid waste
management in Nigeria –past, and present
The foremost institutional framework in Nigeria has largely
classified solid waste management more as an environ-
mental issue than as a health and social problem. The past
waste management activities in the country were, there-
fore, mainly categorized and handled under environmental
protection programs. Reviewed past government’s envi-
ronmental budgetary allocation shows that from 1981 to
1985, about $2.5 million was allocated to environmental
protection and planning. This is roughly about 0.001% of
the total annual budget of the federation, as against 4–5%
that was being allocated in other high-income countries at
that time [37]. After the creation of FEPA in 1988, the then
federal military government budgeted and appropriated
more funds to FEPA, but as an ecological fund that is
specifically tagged for national emergencies and disaster
management such as flood, drought, erosion control, and
other human hazards [26]. From 1990 to 1992, total funds
budgeted by the federal government under the National
Rolling Plan for community development, town and
country planning, environmental development, sewage
management, development of water supply, housing
development, mapping, etc. were aggregated at
$29.6 million, from which $4 million was earmarked for
environmental protection. Other key economic sectors like
agriculture, defense, energy, transport, and commerce
consumed about 53% of the total appropriated funds [95].
This could be cogently explained by the government’s
onset effort on emphasizing and prioritizing economic
growth over environmental protection as mentioned in the
foregoing section [96]. Another contributing reason for this
could be the poor economic and political agenda that
characterize the then military rule. A typical example is
that from 1981 to 1985, 10% of the country’s national
budget was assigned to the defense which was unreason-
ably high compared to the 0.001% meant for environ-
mental protection alone. The high fund allocation for
defense in the budget is unjustifiable on the fact that
Nigeria was not at war with any country at the period under
review [37]
At present, the three tiers of government –federal,
state, and local have shared roles in the financing of
developmental projects in Nigeria. There is the
10 Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

constitutional provision that mandates the federal gov-
ernment to distribute funds to state and local govern-
ments which are known as ‘statutory monthly allocation’.
The state governments and local governments are also
expected to raise funds individually from internally
generated revenues towards meeting up with their
recurrent and capital expenditures. Amongst these
internally generated revenues are the waste management
levies and dues imposed on households, institutions,
and commercial outfits. Certainly, there is no docu-
mented data on the amounts of funds generated specif-
ically from waste management fees by various states in
Nigeria in the current era. The reason is mostly connected
to how these levies are collected in most states. Because
of costs and logistics challenges involved in the collec-
tions of levies on the Nigerian urban areas such as
improper housing structure, lack of staff, and corrupt
practices, the government often outsourced the function
to private consultants on contracting bids that are hugely
underpriced, which probably shortchanges the govern-
ment [58]. Apart from Lagos, other state governments
have not shown aggressive interest in optimizing waste
levy collection in most cities in Nigeria. Perhaps, this
might be linked to the fact that in low and middle-income
countries, waste management services are majorly
perceived as an essential service to the public that
needed to be subsidized or undertaken without expected
returns on investment [8].
On the other hand, ascertaining the level of funds
allocated for waste management services in the various
state governments in the current time is difficult, since
waste management activities are often jumbled with other
environmental issues such as water and sanitation, at the
state level. The persistent poor status of waste manage-
ment services in Nigeria is a reflection that the waste au-
thorities are still largely underfunded as was reported in
studies before 1999 [39, 46]. The lack of funding mirrored
the poor quality of waste services, inadequate manpower,
poor vehicle maintenance, absence of waste collection
trucks, and waste storage containers, and poor waste
disposal methods [9, 91, 92].
Discussion
In this section, we discuss the future of MSW management
in Nigeria. In the first part, the theoretical quantities of
urban solid waste to be generated in Nigeria in the future
were calculated and discussed, while in the second part we
discuss the prospects for circular economy adoption.
Future projections of solid waste generation
and collection rates in Nigeria
Many socio-economic parameters influence the quantity of
waste generation in cities. But the most accepted general
factors sensitive to making projections are; the city’s pop-
ulation, population growth index, and per capita waste
generation [64]. Nigeria’s total population P
20XY
, (current
and future year) is calculated with the model given as:
P20XY P2006(1+r100)20XY−2006 (1)
where P
2006
= 140,431,790 (2006 population census figure);
r=3.2 (annual population growth index, which is a national
value) [55],
The urban population for the current/future year is
calculated with the model:
Figure 3: (A) Projected growth in the urban and total population in
Nigeria from 2020 to 2040. (B) Current and Projected quantities of
solid waste generated/collected in Nigeria.
Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria 11

P20XY (Urban)0.486 P20XY (2)
where 0.486 (48.6%) = current urban population which is
assumed to remained constant [97]. The growth in the total
and urban population in Nigeria for 2020, 2025, 2030, 2035,
and 2040 is shown in Figure 3A.
The total urban solid waste generated in Nigeria in
tonnes per day (TPD) for the current and future year was
calculated with:
Q20XY 0.00063 tonnesday ×P20XY(Urban)(3)
where 0.63 kg/day = 0.00063 tonnes/day = is the rate of
waste generation assumed to remain constant for Nigeria
[56]. The total waste collected for the current and future
year is calculated with:
Q20XY(Collected)0.41 ×Q20XY (4)
The waste collection rate of 41% was also assumedas an
average value for low-income countries [3]. The calculated
values of quantities of waste generated and collected for the
present year,2020, and projected values for the future years;
2025, 2030, 2035, and 2040 are shown in Figure 3B.
Sustainable development in its intrinsic meaning im-
plies a type of development that encompasses the sensitive
areas of human development which are economic, social,
and environmental protection. Nigeria like most low and
middle-income countries is in the dilemma of achieving
these facets of development simultaneously. Urbanization
which is an outcome of socio-economic development often
results in an unmitigated growth rate of population and
rapid industrialization which is the major driver of MSW
generation. Nigeria’s current urban population which is
calculated at 106 million, has been projected to hit
199 million people by 2040 (Figure 3A) and will generate a
total solid waste of 125,473TPD as against66,828 TPD that is
being generated currently as shown in Figure 3B. Also,
global case history rightly points out that when the urban
population of a nation exceeds 25% of the general popula-
tion, the urbanization accelerates [98]. These factors are all
precursors that the MSW management and the general ur-
ban infrastructure in Nigeria, will receive greaterpressure in
the nearest future. It, therefore, calls for a proactive and
integrated measure in demographic, environmental, health,
and social planning in preparation ahead of the challenges.
Opportunities and prospect for circular
economy adoption in solid waste
valorization in Nigeria
Environmentally sound waste management practices will
significantly reduce the degradation of environmental
components of water, air, and land. By extension will
improve the quality of life and public health. The circular
economy is currently being regarded as one promising
means of achieving a high waste recycling rate, economic
prosperity, job creation while diminishing the adverse ef-
fects of waste on society. One demonstrable example of the
positive impact of the circular economy is in the European
Union (EU). EU has introduced many directives on waste
management improvement modalities. Horizon 2020
initiative, which is one of the biggest EU’s research pro-
grams with over 80 Billion Dollars of funding spanning
seven years period was introduced to this effect [12]. It is
aimed at improving the waste management situation in the
region by adopting circular economy principles. A lot of
signs of progress has been made in EU waste management
in recent time. For instance, the recycling rates for MSW
has improved by 16% from 2004 to 2017, packaging waste
recycling rate increased by 13% from 2005 to 2016; of the
total MSW generated by EU-28, Iceland, Switzerland, and
Norway in 2017, about 46% was recycled, while 67% of
packaging waste generated in 2016 was recovered [99]. The
EU’s revised legislative framework on waste for 2018 pro-
posed a 65% target on MSW recycling by 2035 and 70%
target on packaging waste recycling by 2030 [100]. The
circular economy has also been integrated into socio-
economy planning at the other high-income countries of
the world such as Japan, and few low and middle-income
countries such as China [101]. Many factors have been
identified as impediments to the adoption of circular
economy in low and middle-income countries which
include low financial resources, poor technological
development, and informal waste recycling schemes [102].
Recent scholarships have, however, recognized that the
implementation of the circular economy should be context-
specific since cities and societies vary in terms of envi-
ronment, social, financial, political, demographic, and
cultural factors [12, 13]. It is based on this perspective that
we discuss opportunities, and prospects for circular econ-
omy adoption in solid waste valorization in what follows;
(i) First is that the foregoing review has shown that at the
past and present, waste management policies in
Nigeria have mostly followed a top-down structural
process, where qualitative laws are formally set and
enforced. The reason is that the policymakers have
focused on environmental protection without consid-
ering business and economic possibilities of waste
management. The green economy approach has not
been extensively explored since both the policymakers
and the general Nigerian public have not viewed waste
as a means of wealth creation but as all rubbish needed
to be discarded. Although evidence of good waste
12 Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

management delivered by public institutions exists in
several countries, Nigeria’s current waste management
institutional arrangement is not properly situated to
offer more prospects for circular economy adoption
and implementation [103]. Efforts are required at sup-
porting market-oriented institutions that will regard
households, institutions, and commercial places that
generate solid waste as customers. This market-based
model of waste management has been exemplified by
‘Wecyclers’, a Lagos-based waste recycling outfit
established in 2012. The company uses a modified
tricycle to access and collect waste from inaccessible
areas. They will sort the collected waste and sends text
messages back to the households notifying them of
how many points they have earned for trading their
household waste. The earned points are converted as a
gift for the households in the form of food items,
cleaning products, and mobile phone airtime. By 2015,
Wecyclers was reported to have collected over
500 tonnes of waste, and have employed over 80
people [104]. The circular economy incentivize scheme
created by Wecyclers has attracted partnerships from
Lagos state government and other meaningful orga-
nizations such as banks, multinational companies, IT
firms, etc., and grant from foreign universities [105].
This service is only available in Lagos at the moment,
we believe that it can be created in other states of the
federation through appropriate incentive legislatures.
(ii) Informal waste picking is an important element of
MSW management in most low and middle-income
economies. A study conducted by [32, 33] had carefully
identified that the informal waste recycling system in
Nigeria, has a well-organized value chain that com-
prises of waste pickers, scrap dealers, itinerant waste
buyers, cart-pushers, middlemen, and micro and small
enterprises (Figure 4).
The structured waste recycling system has offered a
critical opportunity for a circular economy
introduction. The elements that are needed to make
the value chain a circular economy model include;
the proclamation of formal policies and institutions, the
implementation of safety procedures, and environ-
mental health regulations. The policies will establish
standards, incentives, health regulations for waste
pickers, pension schemes, and safety equipment. While
the institutions will enforce, regulate, and also protect
the interests of all parties. Moreover, the public institu-
tion would also control the implementation of the cor-
rect procedures. Wecyclers’s experience (mentioned
earlier) has shown that organized waste recycling
schemes can easily attract partnerships and good
funding from credible quarters.
(iii) According to [106], corporate governance tools could
be embedded in the informal waste picking system to
improve the economic efficiency of the system. This
is hinged on the perspective that regarding waste
picking as a business and not as welfare policy, al-
lows proffering management solutions that will help
in optimizing the operating activities [106]. And will
in the long run minimize the assistance policy of the
government as the informal waste system becomes
financially independent. Based on this, we also
believe that the environmental, social, and health
challenges associated with informal waste recycling
need to be considered in the business policy. Hence,
for proper inclusion of the informal waste picking
activities in a circular economy model in Nigeria, we
propose the following interventions (i) The environ-
mental challenges can be addressed by incorpo-
rating a policy framework on the minimum
operational guidelines to be adopted by any private
venture (like Wecyclers) that is opting for participa-
tion and recruitment of waste pickers. (ii) The social
challenges of informal waste picking such as stig-
matization can be addressed by formalizing their
operation and by them being referred to as “envi-
ronmental operator’rather than ‘waste picker’in the
official policy documents. (iii) To minimize the
associated health risk, the policy documents could
also provide health insurance benefits by integrating
the waste pickers in the already existing National
Health Insurance scheme in Nigeria, provide free and
adequate health education, free protective clothing,
and sanitary equipment. These three listed condi-
tions could be set as a prerequisite for issuing an
operating license to prospective private waste recy-
cling outfits such as Wecyclers.
Figure 4: The value chain for informal waste recycling in Lagos,
Nigeria
Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria 13

(iv) The activities of the vast majority of industries in
Nigeria are regulated by independent government
agencies. For example, the National Agency for Food
and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)
oversees the activities of food and water packaging
industries in Nigeria, from the time of registration to
operation. But the only problem is that the agency
does not regulate the waste generated by the sector.
The circular economy opportunity here is that NAF-
DAC, for instance, may have the database (name,
address, and location) of all the food and water
processing companies in the country and therefore
when a circular economy framework such as
extended producer responsibility is introduced by
the regulatory body, enforcement, and monitoring of
compliance will not be difficult to implement. The
NCC has already towed this line to issue an e-waste
management guideline for the telecommunication
industry as mentioned in the previous section.
(v) A previous study has also shown that there is an
existence of interdependency among the Nigerian
industries demonstrated by the case of water pack-
aging industries and the plastic industry [13]. The
packaging nylon and plastic bottles used by water
packaging factories are mostly outsourced to plastic
producers. It simply means that the last user in the
reverse logistic supply chain of water packaging
material (bottles and nylon) is the plastic industry.
This is another critical opportunity for meso-level
(inter-industry) circular economy model creation in
the country.
(vi) Various waste components generated in the coun-
try’s municipal cities have proven to be marketable
and reusable. The high organic waste component, for
instance, has been reported in many cities, which is
an avenue for the development of bio-energy clean
technology mechanism for a waste-energy genera-
tion. Although there are many sources of biomass for
bioenergy production, MSW seems more promising
because it is being generated daily and inconse-
quential volume too. This is an opportunity, in the
long term which Nigeria should consider in solving
its energy problem through bioenergy technology.
One way to achieve this is by integrating energy
policymaking in Nigeria with the MSW policy in the
meso-level circular economy framework. The
renewable energy policy drafted by the Energy
Commission of Nigeria in 2014 stated that ‘the nation
shall incorporate waste-to-energy strategy in its
overall waste management framework’[107]. But the
policy document also recognized that the high
upfront cost of this technology is a key challenge to
its deployment [107]. Our opinion is that since waste-
to-energy technology is of interest to both the energy
sector and waste management authorities, the
burden of the so-called upfront capital cost could be
shared between the two governmental agencies and
spread out in the long term annual budgetary pro-
visions of the agencies. Another way to achieve this
policy synergy is that the reverse logistics in the
supply chain of the biomass component of the MSW
can be collaboratively designed by the two agencies
for the optimal yield of the biomass that would serve
as a feedstock for the waste-to-energy plants.
(vii) In the theoretical circular economy model proposed
for low and middle-income countries by [12], the
introduction of waste recovery shops in the cities was
suggested, where a waste picker could be stationed
to collect waste recyclables from citizens. The high-
lighted advantages of waste recovery shops include
fostering familiarity between city inhabitants and
waste pickers, job creation, enhancing the ease of
monitoring, and data collection on recyclables by the
municipal authorities. Urban markets in Nigeria
provide a subtle opportunity for the establishment of
these shops. Being an essential component of urban
profile in Nigeria, urban markets act as a great arena
for the interaction of buyers, sellers, and producers
of commodities. Establishment of waste shops in the
urban market will increase public awareness of
recycling while ensuring high recycling rates.
Furthermore, unlike high-income countries where
urban residents can easily source foodstuffs and
other necessities of life from supermarkets and
shopping malls, most urban dwellers in Nigeria
depend on urban markets for their household items
due to the perception that cheap commodities can
easily be assessed. Therefore, based on the high de-
pendency of Nigeria’s urban dwellers on urban
markets as the major source of their household items,
household solid waste generated in the Nigerian
cities can largely be linked to these urban markets.
This is another opportunity for implementing
extended producer responsibility since the vast ma-
jority of commodities sold in the markets can be
traced to either local or foreign producers. To achieve
good results would require collaboration between
the existing organized trade unions in the markets,
the producers, and the governments at all levels. This
type of collaboration has been pointed out as a major
enabler to circular economy adoption in low and
middle-income countries [108].
14 Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria

(viii) Efficient and sustainable waste treatment techniques
are equally essential in the circular economy
schemes. High capital, maintenance, and operation
cost of novel waste treatment facilities such as in-
cinerators, and biochemical waste conversion
equipment have hindered the large scale application
of this technology in most countries of Africa
(including Nigeria) [8]. However, a cost-effective
mechanical biological treatment technology for pre-
treatment of waste before final disposal has been
suggested for low and middle-income countries like
Nigeria [12]. It ensures organic waste stabilization
and production of waste-derived fuels as it converts
waste to energy as fuel. It also addresses the issue of
energy demand and solid waste management in a
circular economy manner [109]. Simultaneously, it
guarantees other socio-economic and environmental
health benefits such as the reduction of landfill gas
production, leachate releases, and unpleasant odor
[110]. While the life span of the disposal site can be
prolonged. We believe that with effective collabora-
tions between waste management authorities and
indigenous research institutes in Nigeria, this tech-
nology variant can be locally produced for effective
waste treatment through frugal innovation.
Recommendations and conclusion
MSW management is a pervasive urban development
challenge in Nigeria [91]. Unmitigated growth in the urban
population which has been predicted to persist into the
future is a factor that would worsen the problem. A review
of the past and present status of the waste handling ap-
proaches have revealed many areas for future improve-
ments. Based on this, we make other recommendations for
this work. Nigeria has collated national data on de-
mographics and health indicators through the De-
mographic and Health Survey (DHS) since 1990 at a
periodic interval of five years. Surprisingly the waste gen-
eration information is not included in these statistics. Since
the general purpose of the nationally collected DHS data is
to inform national development planning and allocation of
economic resources. It is our opinion that future household
surveys should integrate waste management survey.
Many urban cities are spreading out in Nigeria without
planning or guideline which has often lead to improper
community structure and proliferation of urban slums and
ghettos. The previous government’s approach to tackling
this problem is by constant demolition of irregular urban
areas. However, in most places in Africa, there is increasing
awareness that cities should be conceived as a complex
system with a dynamic informal economy which plays an
increasing role in urban solid waste management. Infor-
mality is receiving recognition as the new mode of urban-
ism. Considering the rate of poverty in Nigeria, and the
government’s lack of capacity in providing adequate
employment, we recommend that urban policymakers in
Nigeria should explore this new urban policy mechanism
that by implementing actions to create a proper and safe
waste recycling operation, the current urban informal
economy that depends more on waste picking could be
legalized. They should be included in social and economic
policy planning.
Research funding: None declared.
Author contributions: All authors have accepted
responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript
and approved its submission.
Competing interests: Authors state no conflict of interest.
Informed consent: Not applicable.
Ethical approval: Not applicable.
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18 Ezeudu et al.: Municipal solid waste management in Nigeria