For many households, used plastics and pet bottles are items to be discarded. Unknown to many, the rejected items are a source of wealth to others. GBENGA ADERANTI reports his encounter with some shrewd individuals who are making money from these ‘waste’ items
Muhammed Usman is a regular face at Akute, a community in Ogun State. Aside from being a waste collector like some of his other colleagues, he also searches for disused plastics and pet bottles in refuse bins that dot the frontage of many houses in the area.
Usman is peculiar because of his special rummaging skill in waste bins. You don’t have to pay him before he packs all the plastics in your garbage bin. And he does it with happiness and dexterity.
Like a dog that is trained to fish out drugs from traffickers’ luggage, Usman does not miss the presence of pet bottles and plastics in a waste bin, no matter the volume of rubbish.
Curious, our correspondent sought to know why he is in the habit of picking plastics from waste bins.
“Oga, all these plastics wey I dey pack, I get people wey I dey supply and dem dey gif me money,” he said gleefully in Pidgin.
But Usman is not alone in the business. Three female siblings, Deborah (17), Goodness (15) and Happiness (13) also eke out a living from picking plastics and pet bottles. They told our correspondent that they sustain themselves with the money they make from picking up the disused items.
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, Happiness, Deborah’s younger sister, was seen carrying a bag filled with disused pet bottles while her sisters were also seen combing the bushes for plastics.
Deborah said: “We have been picking plastics for a long time now. We do this for our brother who shreds and supplies to those who need them.
“Because we cannot pick enough, my brother also depends on other collectors from whom he buys a kilo for N70.
“You will be shocked at the volume he gets from other sources.”
Many, no doubt, consider going about in search of disused plastic bottles a strange line of business, but not Deborah, who is about to sit for her final secondary school exam. “I don’t see anything strange about the business,” she said.
According to her, she and her two sisters go out together because of the love that exists between them and the fact that they like doing things together.
Reminded that they could contract diseases in the course of rummaging through refuse dumps, Deborah vehemently disagreed. “It is impossible; we cannot fall sick,” she said.
A resident said the three sisters had become regular faces around the community on account of their vocation. The resident said Deborah probably chose to operate in company with her sisters because she feels vulnerable and some evil-minded people might take advantage of her.
“You never can tell; she could be molested. But with three of them going out together, that would be a bit difficult,” she said.
While admitting that they find joy in picking up plastics, they regret not getting as many of the items as they desire.
The Nation’s findings revealed that Nigeria generates about 2.5 million tons of plastic waste annually and ranks ninth among the countries with the highest contributions to plastic pollution globally. Unfortunately, more than 88 percent of the plastic waste generated in Nigeria is not recycled.
Another plastics fetcher, 18-year-old Emmanuel Ige, said he chose the vocation because he believes it is better than going into Yahoo (internet fraud) like some of his contemporaries. Ige does not only work in a factory where disused plastics are crushed, he also takes time to pick and supply disused plastics to dealers.
While he may not be one of the big players in the business, he is glad that it does not only get him engaged, it also pays his bills. Today, he said, there are three of his siblings working for him.
He said: “I’m doing this on my own to earn some little money. I also supply pets to those who shred it. I decided to do this because it is not every time I would be asking mum and dad for money.”
He also would not share the opinion of those who infer that the business is plagued by health hazards, especially contracting diseases while picking pet bottles indiscriminately.
“The only risk is that you can get injured in the process of picking these plastics or carrying heavy bags of plastics. Another challenge is that we come in contact with a lot of rubbish like faeces, or people urinating on the plastics we are about to pick, even in our presence,” he argued
Since the major suppliers of these plastics are the scavengers, who spend most of their time on dumpsites, it is always difficult for loaders like Samuel.
“If you consider the distance between where the vehicles are parked and where you pick these bags of plastic, it is far, and you have to climb a mountain of dumps,” he said.
Samuel said that three of his siblings are also into pet bottle collection. “I never invited them into the business. But when they saw the money I was making, they too chose to go into it.”
Ige’s “success” has further encouraged him to expand the business. Last Sunday, he added can, nylon and cartons to his collections.
He appealed to the youth to stop waiting for the government to create jobs. Rather, he said, they should also be creative and do something for themselves.
“Government encouraging people like us is not the issue. We ourselves should use our initiative to think about what we can do.
“People have to initiate something before the government can help them,” he said.
A graduate of Theatre Arts from the University of Ibadan, Olalekan Soara, is also into the business of plastics and pet bottles, though he does not go about picking them but buys from those who pick for supply to some Chinese companies who in turn export the shredded plastics.
At his factory in Ogun State, Soara’s surroundings were dotted with large bags of plastics inside polythene bags. At the other corner were shredded plastics stuffed into neatly packed bags. The environment looked somewhat unkempt, but it is the factory that pays the bills for Soara.
Sitting cozily on a plastic chair awaiting the lorry that would take tons of the shredded plastics to his customer, Soara told The Nation that unemployment ‘forced’ him into the business but he was not regretting going into it.
Today, he has many people on his payroll besides the disused plastic suppliers and labourers he pays regularly.
The presence of many young boys as workers in the factory, performing one task or the other was a testament to the success of his business.
“We supply to people who export the materials,” Soara said. “We also supply to some Nigerian companies, especially those that manufacture plastic chairs. Some use them to make plastic boxes and foams, among other things.”
While he admitted that there is money to be made if the business is done properly, he appealed to banks to grant people in the line of the business access to loans, saying it would go a long way.
“This business needs lots of funds. The business is wide, such that small capital cannot do it properly,” he said.
Soara, who said he underwent no serious training before venturing into the business, said he only got the basic skills through one of his bosses who had been in the business for a long time.
“My oga just asked, can you do it? I said yes, there is no legit business that one cannot do as long as you make money from it. That was how I started, and we thank God we are making some small money from it.
“He only took me through the buying process, the sorting process, and how to supply to the companies that are buying.”
Soara, a holder of B.A. and M.A. degrees, said he is also into events management. “You know that only one business cannot sustain one in this country now. You need a stream of income.”
Uncertainties
While Soara is one of the major dealers in his Ogun State community, he depends on the labourers and refuse collectors for the supply of raw materials, which he reckons is not as simple as many people tend to think.
The Nation gathered that with about 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, Nigeria ranks ninth globally among countries with the highest contributions to plastic pollution. Unfortunately, more than 88 percent of the plastic waste generated in Nigeria is not recycled.
“We get our materials from abokis (scavengers). Your own is just go and meet them and say you want to buy. But getting raw materials could be a bit problematic as some of the abokis have long-time clients that they are faithful to, who give them funds. So you can’t just go and say you want to buy.
“But if you have access to funds, you can give them money to trade for you, and some of them will trade for you. But most times it is risky. After collecting money and supplying you once or twice, they may return to their home towns mostly in the North.
“And you don’t know where they live; it is this business that brought you together. They know you can’t look for them.
“I had an experience with someone who ran away with my N100,000. Another disappeared with N35,000. Basically, abokis are the ones supplying us. Our own is to go and meet them to negotiate the price.”
Plastic wastes under-utilised
Except there is a government policy insisting on making use of recycled plastics and pets at home, Soara believes that the economy would continue to be adversely affected.
“I think the plastic recycling business is an area the government is not focusing on. The government is losing a lot,” he said.
He is appalled that the business is left in the hands of the Chinese, as they dictate the price and the volume of what to do with the pets and plastics.
He said: “The Chinese companies dictate everything. They would just come and take everything.
“If they tell you that they are not buying a particular market or tell you that they are buying at a particular price that the supplier did not buy, there is nothing you can do because they are the only ones in the business; no competition.
“If they say no, it is no. The government is losing a lot.”
He appealed to the government to pay attention to the industry and encourage Nigerians, insisting that the waste plastics that are being taken out of Nigeria would probably be used in Nigeria if the government encourages its citizens.
“We are losing a lot by allowing the waste plastics to be taken out and made into end products for us. While the business is good to a certain extent, it is unfortunate that unhealthy competition is not making it attractive.”
To make matters worse for those in the plastic recycling business, The Nation gathered that the practitioners do not have a union to regulate the activities of its members.
“Under the guise of controlling the business, some dealers inflate prices given to supplier ‘abokis’ in order to run out those who do not have big capital.
“The suppliers are making money, but we are not making the profits that we should be making. The abokis are the ones making money.”
Soara also disclosed that some plastic bottle fetchers engage in sharp practices by adding glass bottles and sand to what they are selling. It is after the dealer has bought it that he would realize that he had been duped, which also kills the business
The money we spend on buying diesel is also killing the business.
Also speaking another dealer, Chukwudi, who said he had been doing the business for the past three years, said the cost of transportation of the plastics to the end users is killing the business.
“Getting your goods to those that buy, it is a big challenge,” Chukwudi said.
According to him, the business could be profitable if all these challenges are removed.
He appealed to the government to assist in providing funds for the people in the plastic recycling business, especially those who buy from pickers, as it would go a long way in assisting them.
“Because we do not have enough funds, it is difficult to source raw materials outside our community,” Chukwudi said.
He believed that if the government stops the exportation of recycled plastics, it would stop the dominance of the market by the Chinese and help grow the Nigerian economy
Big business, few dealers
Unfortunately, while Nigeria generates lots of plastic waste, only a few are willing to go into the business and suppliers still complain of lack of it.
According to a report by Conversation, each year, at least 8 million tonnes of plastics end up in the oceans, the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute.
In the last decade, Nigeria has produced more plastic than it did in the whole of the last century. Fifty percent of the plastic used in Nigeria is single-use or disposable. Plastic makes up 10% of all of the waste Nigeria generates.
It was gathered that plastic waste pickers are not getting enough because of the attitude of many house-holds who prefer burning their disused plastics to disposing them at dumpsites, thereby denying pickers waste plastics that would have gone to dealers.
“This is common in the hinterlands. But in the cities, this does not happen. I think there should be a proper education on how waste should be disposed of and our people should be discouraged from burning their refuse,” said Adewale Johnson, an environmentalist.
As of today, according to Obi Nnanna, the founder of Kaltani, the plastic recycling business in Nigeria is worth $10 billion. Unfortunately, only a few are away from the opportunities available in this line of business.
Kaltani is one of the big-time players in the recycling business in Nigeria. It is a clean-tech recycling and waste management company focused on collecting, processing, and recycling municipal solid waste, composting biodegradable waste to organic fertilizer, recycling plastic waste, metal waste, and paper waste.
While plastics continued to cause environmental hazards, Chair of the Technical Sub-Committee of the 29th Nigerian Economic Summit (#NES29) webinar, Mrs Ozofu Ogiemudia, in an address expressed optimism that Nigeria’s annual 2.5 million metric tonnes of plastic waste is capable of generating wealth and jobs if adequately and sustainably managed.
According to her, Nigeria is one of the largest consumers of plastics in Africa, stating that the country imported an estimated 20 million tonnes of primary plastics and plastic products between 1996 and 2017, and this is projected to reach 40 million tonnes by 2030. At the programme, the Director of Corporate Affairs and Sustainability, Nigeria Bottling Company Ltd, Mrs Oluwasoromidayo George, said that waste disposal has a severe environmental impact and that Nigeria can create about 750,000 jobs within a short time frame to improve the lives of millions of workers in the informal sector by fully harnessing the potentials in the plastics value chain.
George also revealed that the green economy holds about 250 million dollars and plastic recycling investment potential of about 40 million dollars in Africa.
