The Managing Director of the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Muyiwa Gbadegesin, has called for stronger producer responsibility in Nigeria’s waste management system, saying the country must focus more on how products and packaging are designed and placed on the market. Gbadegesin made the call in a post on X……
The Managing Director of the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Muyiwa Gbadegesin, has called for stronger producer responsibility in Nigeria’s waste management system, saying the country must focus more on how products and packaging are designed and placed on the market.
Gbadegesin made the call in a post on X while reacting to new packaging rules introduced by the European Union, saying the development offered an important lesson for Nigeria.
“The EU’s new packaging rules, which came into effect this week, are a useful reminder that the future of waste management is not just about recycling more. It is about moving responsibility upstream,” he said.
He noted that Lagos had already taken steps in that direction through the ban on Styrofoam and restrictions on specified single-use plastics that took effect last year.
Gbadegesin, however, said bans alone would not solve the waste management challenge, stressing the need to integrate existing policies and producer responsibility initiatives.
He pointed to Nigeria’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework under the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), as well as Producer Responsibility Organisations such as the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA).
“Nigeria already has an Extended Producer Responsibility framework under @NESREANigeria, with Producer Responsibility Organisations such as the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (@fbralliance) bringing companies together to support the collection and recovery of post-consumer packaging,” he said.
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According to him, the next step is to ensure that regulations, producer responsibility schemes, collection systems and recycling infrastructure operate as a coordinated system.
“A city like Lagos cannot recycle its way out of packaging that was never designed to be recovered in the first place,” Gbadegesin said.
He argued that producer responsibility should increasingly reflect the actual cost of collecting, sorting, recovering and recycling packaging materials placed on the market.
“That means linking better packaging design, NESREA’s EPR framework, organisations like FBRA, stronger collection infrastructure, recycling capacity and, importantly, real markets for recovered materials,” he said.
Gbadegesin said Lagos’ measures on Styrofoam and single-use plastics had also raised an important question about the types of materials that should enter the waste stream in the first place.
“The circular economy will not be built by waste collectors and recyclers alone. It has to start upstream with design, production and producer responsibility,” he said.
