Olusola Soyanwo, Managing Director of Integrated Recycling Limited, shares her experiences in the waste recycling business, a venture borne out of her passion to contribute towards a sustainable environment where as much waste as possible get recycled for fresh production. She tells Caleb Ojewale in this interview that billions of PET bottles indiscriminately discarded in Nigeria are in high demand by recyclers.
What prompted the decision to start this business
It starts with identifying a problem; a problem where we have a lot of waste going into the land fields. When I was with LAWMA, I was also able to work at the land field located in Ojota. We see a lot of waste come in, and we see the scavengers scramble to get some of those things out; things they can actually reuse.
I picked up the interest because I am actually passionate about the environment. I want a situation where we would actually leave a better place for our children or at least, the future generation. What they get is what we leave behind.
I also discovered that if we don’t start separating everything from the source, [based on the population of Lagos estimated at over 20 million], we are actually sending a lot of resources, a lot of things that can actually serve as feedstock for another process to the land field, where it is buried and no longer utilised.
I also realised people don’t really understand why they need to recycle; they don’t understand the environmental benefits and even the benefits to themselves. So, we started engaging people, schools, and organisations, giving them trainings on why this is important, its environmental benefits, apart from its cost saving benefit.
What types of waste do you recycle
We at Integrated Recycling Limited, actually collect all recyclables, be it paper, plastics, cans. We also collect glass because all these materials can be recycled. However, we focus more on PET bottles. Do you know that around 3 billion of PET bottles are produced in Nigeria every year? If all those things end up in our drains and in our canals, with nobody taking them back, it will become a really serious problem. Because these things take hundreds of years to decompose, and leaving them also poses the risk of causing stagnant water ways, where mosquitoes will breed.
It is not so much about the financial incentive; the incentive is little, but the long-term impact is great.
If you are familiar with Innoson, they use recycled plastic as part of their car parts.
What are the potentialities of this recycling business
There is a lot of potential, and Nigeria is actually a place where we have the population strength. We need to get a lot of people involved.
Even when given the pre-recycling bin, people still find it difficult to sort their waste. What most people don’t know is that sorting makes the job easier. But when everything is coming with different waste items, it becomes a bit difficult, hence, time wasting for people. Sorting makes the material cleaner for those who will use it and also saves times for eventual production process.
Our vision is to actually get to the stage where we would actually make products from those items that are being discarded as waste.
Do you make recycled plastics into new bottles yourself
We are at the crushing stage, which is what we focus on. We mostly sell them locally and our buyers then export to China (and Asia generally), where they are turned into new plastics, which people then (re)import to Nigeria.
Hold on, it is possible to turn plastic into cloth
Yes, it is. PET bottles can actually be converted into fibre, and then polyester from where it is made into clothes. It is also now being used for all the stuffing inside pillows.
What about the Nigerian market, can’t we complete the production cycle here without going to Asia
That’s one of the things we would like to do. We have interest in it, but it is quite expensive. The honest truth is that the people that even make plastics actually buy the preformed. These PET bottles are actually made from tiny bottles that look like test tubes. When they get here, all we do is make use of a machine that blows it up into the plastic bottles we use.
What of glass, and also paper recycling
Glass can be used in various forms, although there are usually complaints about difficulty in recycling it. A lot of it can be used for nice kitchen cabinets, but most of it actually goes into the land fields- from what I’ve seen so far.
Another thing that is of good value is paper. In Ogun state for instance, paper is being converted to tissue. But, for us, what we do is to collect and sell to other players in the field.
Recently, the rains have started and the waterways are littered with a lot of waste, particularly what we call “Take away packs”, what is being done to recycle that material
What we do now is focusing a lot more on the PET plastic, but like you’ve rightly said, we just consume everything. We need to start educating people; telling them that they don’t really need to take anything away, if they must, it should be packaged in something that can be reused.
Secondly, we actually collect it, there are some people that reuse it, they wash it and use it to repackage something else; that’s the honest truth. However, I don’t know of those who recycle it at the moment because that particular material is made from polypropylene and I don’t know people with the facilities to recycle it.
Presently, the people we employ are young people who on a normal day are people who loiter around, doing nothing but now they are employed and also making a difference in the environment.
What dangers are associated with consumption of fishes from waters contaminated with plastic
You know all those fishes actually swallow plastic; when they’ve been broken down into small bits.
And that’s why you have a 4 year old having cancer now because these plastics emit toxins that have been banned globally, such as dioxins. It is a direct source of carcinogenic particles, so we need to educate people against throwing plastics on the floor, in the water etc. However it would seem, Nigerians generally don’t seem to care and we need to get that to change.
What are the challenges in managing the waste recycling business
Funding is a big challenge because a lot of the equipment needed for the stages in recycling are quite expensive, which also accounts for inability to totally re-convert to new products, unless they are shipped to Asia, particularly China. Electricity is also a source of concern, considering the fact that we usually need to run at least 8 hours straight and this is mostly done, using generators.
Another thing is that the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) needs to enforce the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) guideline.
The honest truth is that all these packaging materials are supposed to be taken back by those who produce them. That is the right thing to do. But because of the laxity in policies in Nigeria, most of the multinationals don’t even bother, even though they do it in their home countries.
Though, NESREA has brought out a framework to make it happen, it needs to be fully implemented so it can help recyclers approach some of these companies with solutions on taking the wastes off them to be recycled; saving the environment, saving production costs for new materials, and maintaining a cycle of employment for more young people.
The “big guys” (multinationals) are not going to be comfortable with the implementation of the EPR and I am expecting them to kick against it, when it fully kicks off.
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