Best Waste Recycling Companies in Nigeria

Earth is dying, and Nigerians are generally doing nothing about it. However, our nonchalance is justifiable; asking Nigeria’s poor to use paper straws or shun plastic bags is frankly asking too much. However, there are simple and cheap ways to protect the environment, and expecting Nigerians to practice them is only fair.

One free, and sometimes economically rewarding, way to protect the environment is by recycling your waste. Waste recycling is simple: keep your reusable waste, like plastic and metals, and have a waste recycling company pick it up; some will even pay you for it.

It sounds like a good deal, but the average Nigerian still doesn’t recycle their waste, usually because they don’t know the waste recycling companies in Nigeria willing to pick it up. Thankfully, we know, and in this article, we’ll show you the 10 best recycling companies in Nigeria that will pick up your waste for free. Before then, however, let’s check out the benefits of waste recycling.

Benefits of Waste Recycling

If you’re new to all this, you may be asking yourself, “Why should I even bother with recycling my waste?” Well, it turns out there are several reasons why you may want to try waste recycling, including the environmental sustainability I mentioned earlier.

Here are some that may incentivize you to recycle your waste.

1. It’s cheaper

Let’s face it: the average Nigerian wants to save money in any possible way. If you find yourself spending a lot to dispose of your waste, you can save yourself some money by having waste recycling companies in Nigeria pick up part, or in some cases, the entirety of your waste on your behalf.

You don’t pay anything; the recycling company makes money; it’s a win-win scenario!

2. Conserves wildlife

You probably don’t care about this as a Nigerian, but recycling your waste could be the difference between an animal living or dying. When you don’t recycle your waste, manufacturers are forced to source new raw materials, and in that process, they may have to cut down forests, which will disrupt the animal’s habitat, causing several trees and many animals to die.

Animals have a right to life too; pity them and recycle your waste.

3. Saves the environment

If you don’t care about animals living or dying, at least, you’ll care about yourself. The process of industrialization, as it stands, emits lots of carbon, and carbon emissions speed up climate change and global warming.

If the climate changes drastically for the worse, we may all die. As it stands, recycling your waste is the only act standing between us and extinction (I may have exaggerated a bit here, but you get the point).

Best Waste Recycling Companies in Nigeria

1. RecyclePoints

RecyclePoints is one of the pioneer waste recycling companies in Nigeria to reward customers for properly disposing of their waste. As the name implies, RecyclePoints awards points to customers for recycling their waste with the company. Customers can exchange the points with cash and household items after accumulating them for a while.

RecyclePoints only collect pure water sachets, PET plastic bottles, used beverage cans (mineral cans), glass bottles (mineral bottles), old newspapers, and brown corrugated cartons. The recycling program is open to individuals, corporate establishments, and academic establishments like schools and universities.

2. Wecyclers

WeCyclers started as a student by Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola and has now grown into one of the most recognizable waste recycling companies in Nigeria. The company’s strategy was simple and effective: target poor households that would otherwise burn or pay to discard the waste, and pay them to recycle it.

The project was an instant success and catapulted from a simple student project to one of the biggest social enterprises combating the Nigerian garbage crisis. So far WeCyclers has recycled over 6,200 tons of waste with no signs of slowing down.

WeCyclers collects waste from house to house using small cargo bikes dubbed wecycles. Like RecyclePoints, WeCyclers rewards customers with points that they can eventually exchange for food and household items.

3. Kaltani

Kaltani recognizes the global plastic waste problem as an epidemic and is setting out to solve it through an innovative recycling program. The company aims for a circular plastic economy by collecting, sorting, washing, and recycling plastic waste into raw materials for industries that rely on them.

Kaltani focuses only on plastic recycling, and the plastics it recycles include water bottles, cooking oil containers, bottle tops, soda bottles, pure water sachets, yogurt cups, margarine tubs, shampoo bottles, and laundry detergent containers.

Unlike WeCyclers and Scrapays, Kaltani doesn’t target everyday people; it works by linking up with collectors that can access significant amounts of plastic waste and process the waste for reuse. While you’ll likely not be interacting much with this company, it’s nonetheless one of the biggest plastic waste recycling companies in Nigeria.

4. Ecofuture Nigeria

The EcoFuture Nigeria project was born out of the realization that Nigeria’s future cannot be sustainable without a clear plan for waste recycling. Furthermore, most recycling companies in Nigeria target the heavily populous area of Lagos, leaving residents of the South-South underserved.

EcoFuture was established in 2014, and by 2017, it had collected over 200 metric tons of recyclable waste, created 10 jobs, and rewarded customers with over $5,700 worth of cash and other valuables for recycling their waste. It’s not up to the standards of bigger recycling companies in Nigeria like WeCyclers, but for a three-year progress report, it’s amazing.

We couldn’t access sufficient information about EcoFuture’s current progress updates, but with such a strong start, there’s very little doubt they’re doing very well. The only drawback of this company is that it doesn’t have an online platform, unlike most other waste recycling companies in Nigeria.

5. Metal Circle

Metal Circle’s name is as self-explanatory as its mission, which is simple: provide a marketplace solution for metal scrap recycling in Nigeria. This company is one of the pioneers of profitable metal recycling in Nigeria, and the practice has now become widespread due to its apparent profitability.

Founded and led by Badairo AbdulAzeez Oluwadare, the company buys scrap metals in large quantities, from industrial metal waste to regular everyday waste like soft drink cans and milk cans. Metal Circle doesn’t operate a point system like RecyclePoints; as long as you have your metal waste, you’ll get your money.

6. Hinckley Recycling

While Hinckley Recycling won’t pay you for your waste, you also won’t have to pay them to dispose of it, which is a pretty good deal too. Unlike most other companies on this list, Hinckley focuses on WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment), which they claim to dispose of in an environmentally responsible way.

If you have tons of electrical waste, you may qualify for the value-return service, an arrangement in which Hinckley shares the proceeds of waste recycling with customers. It’s not one of the most expansive recycling companies in Nigeria, but it’s right for its target audience.

7. Biostar Green Solutions

Biostar Green Solutions runs a similar business model as most other recycling companies in Nigeria, exchanging recyclable waste from low-income women and youth in Nigeria with points they can convert to airtime, cash, and other household goods.

As part of the company’s efforts to encourage recycling, it started the installation of Smart Green Bins at select locations, allowing easier disposal of recyclable waste by customers. While its mission of collecting 1000 tons of plastic bottles in five years sounds a bit too optimistic, Biostar Green Solutions is well on its way to becoming one of the best waste recycling companies in Nigeria.

8. Scrapays Inc

Whenever there’s a moneymaking opportunity, you can always expect a Nigerian to work on a solution to ‘techify’ it. Among waste recycling companies in Nigeria, Scrapays Inc. is a company techifying it by providing a platform you can use to earn commissions by simply storing and recycling your recyclable waste.

The platform is based on a simple concept: download the app, get your recyclable materials together, and call them to pick up. Scrapays will come around, pick up the waste, value it, and credit your Scrapays account. You can then proceed to fund your bank account, purchase airtime, shop from a partner store, or transfer to other Scrapays accounts using your Scrapays credits.

The materials you can recycle with Scrapays include corrugated carton sheets, plastics, aluminum, metals, batteries, and composite materials. There’s also an enterprise program for companies looking to achieve carbon neutrality through recycling, with details available on the Scrapays website.

9. Chanja Datti

Chanja Datti’s founders may have to learn a bit more about naming their startups, but we must nonetheless acknowledge the company is among the best waste recycling companies in Nigeria. Note that this list is in no particular order, so Chanja Datti’s idea is not inferior to Hinckley Recycling’s, for instance.

Talking about ideas, Chanja Datti seems to have a lot of them to solve Nigeria’s garbage problem. The company’s Protect 10,000 Initiative is aimed at protecting Abuja’s 10,000 Baba Bolas (urban waste pickers) from the biological, chemical, and psychological risks they face in their day-to-day work.

Chanja Datti also runs the Cash4Trash initiative, which exchanges household trash for cash and other everyday valuables. There’s also Bottles for Books, an initiative that lets customers enroll out-of-school children in school using recyclables as payment for their tuition. Finally, there’s the Women Recyclers Empowerment Initiative, aimed at rewarding women who have made significant strides in recycling household recyclables.

While most of Chanja Datti’s programs are limited to Abuja for now, it’s not too early to include it among the best waste recycling companies in Nigeria, thanks to its laudable initiatives.

FAQs

Conclusion

Waste recycling isn’t only important, it’s necessary, and it’s now easier than ever to recycle your waste as a Nigerian. Simply contact the nearest waste recycling company to you from our recommendations above, and they’ll pick up your waste cheaply or for free; they may even pay you for it.

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