Exactly two weeks ago, on Thursday May 18, Nigeria made good its promise to join the World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership, by launching its own domestic front of the platform – known as National Plastic Action Partnership. Just like the WEF’s GPAP, Nigeria’s NPAP shall work with governments, businesses and civil society to translate plastic pollution commitments into concrete solutions. It aims to address plastic pollution in the country by promoting circular economy practices and collaborating with various stakeholders to take care of plastic waste from production to consumption and reuse.
From my observation, the world seems to have made up its mind to eradicate plastic pollution, and is now on a steady trajectory towards achieving this mission. In 2018, the World Environment Day had as theme, “Beat plastic pollution,” and it is gladdening to note that the momentum gained continued in full rev; hence the tangential formation of the Global Plastic Action Partnership at the World Economic Forum. Indeed, the GPAP has already given birth to promising national domestication models that have been piloted in Indonesia, Ghana and Vietnam.
In Indonesia, the national partnership has launched action and investment road maps that could prevent 16 million tonnes of plastic leakage into the ocean, create 150,000 jobs, and generate $10bn a year in revenue from investment in waste management, plastics substitution and innovative business models. Similar ambitious blueprints for action are also being developed in Ghana and Vietnam. And now that Nigeria has come on board with NPAP, one cannot wait to see the deliverables to our society.
Meanwhile, there are a number of reasons all eyes should be on us. First, Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, as well as home to one of the largest youth populations in the world. Our commercial hub, Lagos, is not only a beehive of activities, but a honeycomb of plastic waste. In 2018, Nigeria was estimated to have discharged around 200,000 tonnes of plastic waste into the ocean per year, while its annual plastic production is projected to grow to 523,000 tonnes by 2022. So, saddled with a government that has yet to summon the political will to promulgate and implement plastic-reduction policies, we are still battling with ever burgeoning plastic discards in our gutters, rivers, creeks and the coast that cradle Eko.
Second, Nigeria is a regional champion in circular economy mainstreaming initiatives. It cofounded the African Circular Economy Alliance with South Africa and Rwanda in 2017 during COP23. Since then, the country has maintained its position on the driver’s seat of circularity on the continent. Last December it hosted the Nigeria Studio of the World Circular Economy Forum; and by next month it is going to host the first-ever Circular Economy Hotspot on African soil, in Lagos.
Third, just this week, a United Nations committee, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for Plastics, met in Paris to work on what is intended to be a landmark treaty to bring an end to global plastic pollution. It is charged with developing the first international, legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. This is the second of five meetings due to take place to complete the negotiations by the end of 2024. Over 2,000 participants, including governments and observers, from nearly 200 countries – including Nigeria – have descended on the meeting hosted at the Paris-based UNESCO. Why does Nigeria matter? Work on the treaty is tricky; hence, countries with regional importance and demographic leverage have greater part to play than others.
It is therefore instructive to note that Nigeria’s NPAP kicked off with the right note: a convergence of key stakeholders in the plastic ecosystem, all in Abuja. More so, that the NPAP already has a working book published and circulated among this critical mass. It is titled, “Social Context Assessment by the Nigeria NPAP: National Gender, Equity and Inclusion Analysis of the Plastic Value Chain and Impacts of Plastic Pollution” – a work commissioned by the GPAP and conducted by the Women Environmental Programme in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Environment, Nigeria, and the NPAP.
There is no overemphasising the fact that as a developing nation, gender balance is critical for the achievement of developmental initiatives in Nigeria, even much more as it concerns plastic pollution management. There is now an emerging spectacle in our streets: Women carrying loads of picked plastic recyclable items; their children running after tourists and commuters begging to have empty water bottles tossed to them; and young social entrepreneurs trying to create marketable items out of discarded plastic items. But, these citizens are just the downlines; while the real plastic waste business men are at the top of the food chain throwing the crumbs at the home makers on whose shoulder Mother Earth has put enormous weight to clean up the waste from ground zero.
There is then a need for conscious socioeconomic initiatives that empower women to become entrepreneurs and owners of plastic enterprises and companies in Nigeria. The NPAP document outlines the data, presents the case and recommends a pathway for efficient and equitable national administration of this emerging but critical sub-sector.
For instance, among other highlights, it concludes that, “As the Nigeria Circular Economy Road Map is launched, there is a need to prioritise the inclusion of all informal workers to safeguard their livelihood from displacement by the private sector through capacity-building training on entrepreneurship and technical skills that will enable them to ascend the value chain by using recyclable materials for manufacturing value-added products. This will enable workers to drive the achievement of sustainable development goals related to poverty, hunger, gender equality and social inequality.”
It also points out that though plastics are undoubtedly universal, opportunities in Nigeria are not equally distributed. Opportunities are more readily available to men and some often marginalised groups like people living with disabilities and rural dwellers are not adequately integrated; and existing policies and regulations are not adequately positioned to address the gender imbalance and levels of exclusion observed in the chain.
Among the work’s many recommendations are: Strengthen and expand the capacity of the existing women-led civil society organisations in water and sanitation in the direction of the circular economy to enhance political influence and create opportunities for women-led CSOs, specifically those advocating for the rights of informal waste workers and women, and allow them to exert their influence on decision-makers in waste management and recycling systems.
There is a need for a standardised government’s role in protecting the exploitation of waste pickers, including, recognising waste pickers in law, integration in the Extended Producers Responsibility and supporting a cooperative model to counterbalance the power of companies and waste pickers groups; encourage waste pickers, especially IDPs and Almajiris, to join waste collector cooperatives and strengthen the existing waste picker’s cooperatives/associations to increase their ability to negotiate and secure better prices from buyers;
Sensitisation of rural communities on the environmental and health implications of open dumping and burning of plastic and nylon in residential backyards and open streets or paths in rural areas; develop market strategies that discourage the prevalent use of free plastic consumer bags, and promote recycling and reuse of plastics in rural areas. An important option is making reusable bags available commercially and promoting reusable bags among women, as findings indicate women are more likely to use plastic bags than men. The large-scale buy-back approach adopted in Lagos State promotes competitive demand through recycling companies and NGOs on recyclable products, which can promote attitudinal changes in many households towards an improved collection of the source, and encouraging a shift from the current throw-away culture to a more sustainable plastic circular economy.
