The Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA) has said its partnership with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) has demonstrated how public-private collaboration can turn plastic waste into an economic resource while reducing pollution across Nigeria.
The Executive Director of FBRA, Agharese Onaghise, disclosed this at the closing ceremony of the 54-month UNIDO project, ‘Promoting Sustainable Plastic Value Chains through Circular Economy Practices’, in Lagos, stating that four pilot plastic collection facilities established in the state would continue to operate beyond the formal completion of the project.
Onaghise said FBRA and UNIDO jointly co-funded the pilot facilities, with the partnership designed to support Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and recover plastic materials for reintegration into the production cycle.
She said the Lagos intervention included facilities at Lakowe in Ibeju-Lekki, Okun Ajah along the coastal road, Igando and Ikorodu. The Okun Ajah facility, operated by Polysmart Packaging Limited through its Switch Recycling operation, commenced operations in February 2026.
Presenting the Lagos case, Polysmart’s Head of Supply Chain, Medinat Bakare, said the Okun Ajah facility emerged from collaboration among FBRA, UNIDO and the Federal Ministry of Environment. She said community roadshows and awareness campaigns supported by FBRA and UNIDO helped overcome initial low awareness of recycling and encouraged residents to participate in plastic collection.
The facility, she said, collected about 76 tonnes of plastic between February and August 2026, with recovered materials subsequently moved to Polysmart’s main facility in Mowe for further processing. According to her, FBRA also supplied an 80-tonne baler to support the operation, while the private-sector partners provided land, personnel, operational management and community-based collection support.
Bakare said the model has brought households, schools and community aggregators into the recycling chain, with the Switch App helping to connect households and collection agents. The recovered plastics, she explained, are diverted from landfills and waterways and returned to production, reducing reliance on virgin materials.
Bakare identified sustained access to equipment, school-based recycling education, incentives and training for collectors, registration of community suppliers and continuous capacity building as necessary to sustain and replicate the model.
For Abuja, Chief Financial Officer of Chanja Datti, Kehinde Olusola, presented the Jabi pilot facility, owned by the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB). He explained that AEPB provided the land, while the facility was commissioned under the UNIDO/Government of Japan project, with Chanja Datti selected to manage its daily operations and supporting its construction.
Olusola said the facility integrates sourcing, collection, sorting, processing and sales to off-takers, with households, waste pickers, aggregators and organisations supplying plastic materials. Tricycles provided through the UNIDO project are being used for community collection.
He said the facility had processed about nine tonnes of plastic between March and August 2026, created 11 direct green jobs and supported 35 women waste workers with personal protective equipment and identification. The company, he said, had also paid about N2.59 million for materials collected at the site.
Olusola said the model was helping to formalise informal waste picking by providing safer working conditions and a more structured income stream. Chanja Datti is also moving beyond collection into manufacturing household products from recovered plastics, while a partnership with Food Concepts Nigeria Limited, parent company of Chicken Republic, is expected to increase plastic supply to the Jabi facility.
Speaking on the overall project, UNIDO Regional Director and Country Representative, Amb. Philbert Johnson, said the initiative had achieved three major outcomes – implementation guidelines for plastic waste management, stronger recycling and plastic value chains, and the demonstration of a circular-economy model based on innovation and technology.
Johnson said the project showed that plastic pollution could not be addressed through collection and recycling alone, but required coordinated action on policy, institutional capacity, municipal services and private-sector participation.
He said the next challenge was sustaining and scaling the gains through local ownership and effective coordination, stressing that ‘the private sector has been the major driver.’ He also urged young people to explore recycling as a business opportunity, noting that viable operations do not necessarily require huge machinery or capital.
Johnson said state governments were invested in plastic management but faced an enormous burden, making it necessary for citizens and businesses to share responsibility. He added that Nigeria could unlock substantial economic benefits by developing domestic processing capacity rather than simply collecting, cutting and exporting plastic materials.
UNIDO Project Manager, Nahomi Nishio, said the project, which began in April 2022, had helped strengthen Nigeria’s plastic ecosystem through interventions at national, state and private-sector levels. She said the project produced and published implementation guidelines, strengthened five organisations through training and pilot interventions, trained informal waste pickers and supported companies adopting circular-economy and resource-efficient practices.
Nishio said an independent evaluation found the project well designed and aligned with national priorities, while also identifying the need to move from policy formulation to stronger implementation, enforcement, investment and development of higher-value markets for circular plastics.
Representing the Minister of Environment, Malam Balarabe Lawal, the Director of Pollution Control and Environmental Health Department, Omotunde Adeola, said the project had improved collection systems, provided infrastructure and equipment for small and medium-sized enterprises, created jobs and strengthened recycling activities in Lagos and Abuja.
Lawal said the ministry was also pursuing plastic recycling interventions in other parts of the country, but stressed that sustainability required cooperation between the federal and state governments. He identified education, awareness, behavioural change, finance and source segregation as major requirements for a stronger circular economy.
On EPR enforcement, he said the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) was working with Producer Responsibility Organisations, including FBRA, and manufacturers to ensure producers assume greater responsibility for plastic waste.
Ambassador Hideo Suzuki of the Embassy of Japan said the country had provided about $2.16 million to fund the UNIDO initiative since 2022, describing the results as tangible through policy tools, operating collection systems and businesses demonstrating recycling models.
Suzuki said the project’s completion should not end the work, urging stakeholders to maintain and expand the guidelines, equipment, technologies and partnerships developed under the programme.
At the stakeholder session moderated by Onaghise, participants called for stronger financing mechanisms, including consideration of a circular-economy trust fund, as international development funding declines. They also advocated fiscal incentives that would make recycled materials more competitive with virgin materials.
Onaghise said FBRA would continue to support and monitor the pilot facilities after the project’s formal closure.
‘The project doesn’t close yet. We still have implementation. We still have the pilot site,’ she said, adding that FBRA would continue to provide oversight and reports to ensure the facilities remain sustainable.
Closing the ceremony, Deputy Director, Solid Waste Management and Technology, Ministry of Environment, Falmata Bukar-Kolo, said the project had created a strong foundation for expanding sustainable plastic management in Nigeria.
She commended Japan for its financial support and UNIDO for its technical expertise, stressing that the knowledge, partnerships and lessons from the project should be used to strengthen and scale up circular-economy practices across the country.