Nigeria: Special Report - Failing Waste System Leaves Lagos Roads Buried in Trash

Hit by soaring diesel prices and crushing operational costs, waste contractors in many parts of Lagos are struggling to sustain weekly collections, pushing frustrated residents to turn major roads into illegal dumpsites.

Flies hover around heaps of rotting waste a few metres from Christian Mbalisigwe's point-of-sale (POS) stand at the Jakande roundabout in Ejigbo, Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area in Lagos State. As buses slow to pick up passengers along the busy road, commuters cover their noses while others step around food waste, black nylon bags and dirty water trickling from piles of refuse in the centre of the road

For Mr Mbalisigwe, the smell has become part of daily life. From morning till evening, he attends to customers while facing piles of waste dumped opposite his kiosk. Sometimes, he said, the refuse remains there for days before officials clear it.

"It wasn't like this before," the 43-year-old said, recalling when the road median was mostly clear of waste. "Now, everywhere starts to smell when it is not cleared. We just have to manage it," he added.

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A city's failing battles with trash

Lagos, a city of over 22 million people, generates an estimated 13,000 tonnes of waste every day, but only about 54 per cent is disposed of through the city's waste disposal system. The rest ends up in open dumps, drainage channels, roadsides and waterways, a pattern that worsens flooding risks and public health concerns during the rainy season, says a 2024 World Bank assessment.

Poor waste management in Lagos carries consequences beyond the visible piles of refuse. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), poor waste collection contributes to environmental and marine pollution and often blocks drainage channels. The resulting flooding and stagnant water create conditions that increase the risk of diseases such as cholera and vector-borne infections, including malaria and dengue.

Studies by the World Bank also show that illegal dumping and open burning common where formal collection fails expose residents to hazardous pollutants that can cause respiratory illnesses and other health risks.

In 1997, Lagos assigned licensed operators known as Private Sector Participants (PSPs) to collect waste across the city. According to the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, Lagos currently has 454 licensed PSP operators serving the state's 376 wards, an average of one operator per ward.

Under the Lagos State Environmental Protection Law 2017, residents are required to register with the PSP operator assigned to their neighbourhood and pay a monthly fee for door-to-door waste collection. However, a World Bank report found that only 67 per cent of households in Lagos have access to any form of waste collection service.

Our investigation reveals that the system is under strain as operators face low payment compliance from residents, which weakens service delivery and leads to irregular collection schedules.

Residents and community leaders in Jakande Estate say waste collectors come only once a month, rather than weekly, causing waste to pile up in their homes.

Kayode Adeshina, a former vice president of the estate association in Jakande, told PREMIUM TIMES that irregular waste collection has eroded trust in the system, forcing residents to seek alternative ways to dispose of their waste.

"They're supposed to come to the estate at least three times in a month, but they come once," said Mr Adeshina, "When they collect the month's money, about N1000, they will not come again and will give the excuse that the dumping site is full and that there is nowhere to dump the refuse. So you will see people dumping their refuse in every corner of the zone."

The situation has forced many residents to either trash it on the streets or engage informal waste pickers who use wheelbarrows to go from house to house to collect refuse.

Across many parts of the state, residents say the system no longer works as intended.

In Ikeja, Mushin, Alimosho, LASU-Ojo road, Surulere, Ikorodu, Abule Ado and Tinubu Square at the Lagos Island, road medians and bus stops have become informal dumping grounds as waste piles up between collections.

In some areas, such as the Ijegun-Ijagemo Road, a densely populated residential area in Alimosho Local Government Area, residents say waste collectors do not service the area, and cart pushers are the primary means of waste evacuation. In 2018, the Lagos State Government banned the activities of cart pushers and wheelbarrow operators. They said cart pushers are worsening illegal dumping and environmental degradation across the state.

A 2025 report by the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), a research partnership led by the University of Manchester, working to improve living standards across some African cities including Lagos, highlighted that poor logistics, weak infrastructure, and government inefficiencies have created gaps, which are filled by private and informal waste pickers and collectors who don't have the capacity and infrastructure to handle the volume of waste disposed of indiscriminately across the city.

Residents say the wheelbarrow operators are often more accessible and responsive than formal waste collectors, making them a preferred option for disposing of household refuse.

"I rely on cart pushers several times a month and pay between N500 and N700 each time to dispose of my waste," a resident living along Ijegun-Ijagemo Road, who didn't want to be named for fear of being targeted for patronising informal waste pickers, said.

Fuel prices impact waste collection

Waste collection contractors said they're struggling with rising fuel prices, which have increased operational costs due to long trips to overstretched dumpsites such as Olusosun in Ojota and Solous III in Igando, forcing them to reduce the number of collection trips.

According to them, the waste collection business in Lagos has become difficult to sustain due to rising operational costs and poor payment compliance from residents.

In the Jakande estate, Golden Pond Limited and Veedic Nigeria Limited are the waste collectors assigned to service the community's 32 zones.

"The major challenge is that most of the residents are unwilling to make payments. They frustrate us a lot," Bukola Olaigbe, a manager at Veedic Nigeria Limited, assigned to Jakande estate, told PREMIUM TIMES.

"The price we give them is barely N1,500 per flat in a month, yet it is still difficult for them to pay, and they want us to come often," she added.

According to her, only a small number of residents in some areas consistently pay for waste collection service.

She said this has made it difficult for operators to maintain trucks, pay workers and fuel daily operations.

"Out of over 1,000 residents, we have about 15 people patronising us. How are we going to come more and more often without money? ... For the few times we are even coming, are they paying? We cannot do more than what we are doing right now. It's not an easy task for us at all. We cannot meet up with maintenance, staff, and salary will become difficult... it will have a bad effect on the business," she said.

The rise in diesel prices has worsened pressure on operators with diesel-powered waste trucks.

Ms Olaigbe said drivers and operators spend hours navigating congested roads, flooded dumpsites and long distances before offloading waste.

"Some operators have to bribe our way through most times. Sometimes the place is flooded, so we go all the way to Shagamu from Oke-Afa almost every day to offload, just so that we can meet up with the customer's demand," she said.

In May 2025, the Lagos State Government announced plans to shut down both facilities as part of a broader waste management reform programme that included transfer loading stations and new processing infrastructure.

Budget documents show that in 2025, N2.24 billion was allocated to the construction and rehabilitation of public facilities, including dumpsites.

Ms Olaigbe said they need subsidies, among other infrastructural support, to improve the city's waste disposal systems, or more residents may resort to burning or illegal dumping, worsening environmental conditions.

Responding to complaints by PSP operators about long delays at disposal sites, the site supervisor at the Olusosun Landfill, Giwa Moshood, disputed claims that trucks spend excessive hours waiting to offload waste.

According to him, evacuation and disposal processes at the landfill typically take about two hours.

"We have two seasons, in the dry season it takes like 45 minutes and presently in the rainy season it can take them like two hours," he said.

Regarding bribery allegations, he said, "I'm not aware of that."

However, he acknowledged that operations become slower during the rainy season, explaining that the breakdown of machinery, slippery access roads and dumping platforms often make it more difficult for trucks to move quickly within the landfill.

Collection capacity and compliance challenges

The Managing Director of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, Muyiwa Gbadegesin, blamed the growing incidence of roadside dumping on weak collection capacity, poor compliance and failing equipment among PSP operators.

"They're supposed to collect waste from household to household once a week. So, wherever you see that deficiency, some of the residents resort to bringing their waste to the roadside or to the median," he said, adding that non-payment by residents also affects operators' ability to function.

To address the problem, he said the state is supporting operators with leased equipment, introducing a centralised billing system and expanding complaint channels to ensure missed pickups are resolved within 24 hours.

He also said the agency plans to improve logistics by installing transfer loading stations and deploying smaller tricycle compactors in areas inaccessible to large trucks.

Speaking on the conditions in Jakande Estate, Mr Gbadegesin said low payment compliance remains a major challenge despite the monthly fee being about N1,000. He added that illegal street trading and informal markets generate waste outside the formal collection system, worsening the problem.

"That's one of the problematic areas. One of the problems in that area is that there is also a lot of illegal street trading and illegal markets," he said.

As part of efforts to improve collection in the estate, he said the agency plans to introduce communal bins to the area. But communal bins are not always an effective solution when evacuation remains irregular. In parts of Mushin visited by this reporter, several central bins were already overflowing, with refuse spilling onto nearby roads after delayed collection.

Mr Gbadegesin also acknowledged service gaps in areas such as Ijegun, where residents rely largely on informal cart pushers because PSP operators are either inactive or unable to access some roads.

"I believe the PSP in that area has actually failed. It hasn't been operational for a while," he said.

The failures within the PSP system have also triggered regulatory action from LAWMA. In December 2025, the agency said it sacked 22 PSP operators over poor waste collection performance.

More recently, it withdrew the licences of five operators serving routes in parts of Igando-Ikotun, Eti-Osa West, Ojo and Ejigbo, including the Bucknor II route in Ejigbo, following what it described as persistent service failures and rising waste management pressure in those areas.

Yet in parts of Lagos, the system appears to work as intended. In Magodo, a highbrow residential estate in the city's mainland, waste collection follows a predictable schedule, with licensed operators making regular pickups and residents largely complying with payment requirements. The result is a noticeably cleaner environment where roadside dumping is far less common.

Recycling hub to the rescue?

Deji Akinpelu, co-founder of Rethinking City, and an action researcher at the ACRC, said Lagos waste reforms have largely targeted symptoms rather than structural causes, noting that measures such as licence revocations and route changes fail to address weak service delivery, poor payment compliance and declining operator capacity.

A study by the consortium, based on 400 households in Ajegunle, Ikorodu, found that gaps in formal collection have driven residents to roadside dumping, burning, and informal recycling, creating a parallel system that both fills gaps and strains existing infrastructure.

Mr Akinpelu said reducing waste at source through community recycling hubs and composting could ease pressure on the system.

"Community recyclable collection hubs and food waste composting programmes are the most underleveraged tools for reducing the volume of waste reaching Lagos' overwhelmed dumpsites," he said.

But such solutions remain largely absent in places like Jakande Estate.

In March, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu launched a monthly cleaning exercise to tackle indiscriminate waste disposal and improve cleanliness across the state. The initiative is part of broader efforts by the government to address persistent waste management challenges.

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Although the government presents the exercise as a response to mounting waste challenges, there is limited evidence of sustained impact. In Jakande Estate, cleared sites often revert to dumping grounds within days.

LAWMA supervisor Opeoluwa Odunlami, who oversees the evacuation of refuse from road medians and highways around Jakande Roundabout, Isolo, and the Cele Expressway area, said traders operating near roads are among those responsible for the illegal dumping.

"These waste dumping locations are illegal. There are task forces to arrest and fine offenders," he said.

But despite the threat of arrest and fines, the dumping continues. Within days of each evacuation exercise, the medians are once again littered with fresh heaps of refuse.

Mr Mbalisigwe said he regularly sees residents arrive with bags of refuse in cars, tricycles or on foot, stopping briefly to dump them before driving off.

"There is no proper place to take it. There used to be a collection point, but it stopped. The government did not provide a place where people can dump their trash, and since there is no collection bin, people do not have an option but to dump on the roadside," he said.

Street sweepers assigned to the area say the work has become a daily struggle. They said scavengers searching for recyclable materials often tear open bags, scattering waste across the road and undoing earlier efforts.

"We clear it, but it doesn't stay clean. People come early in the morning or late at night to dump. Some even throw it from their vehicles," Olamide Omotayo, one of the workers, told PREMIUM TIMES.

She says the dumping comes from different sources - residents, traders, and cart pushers.

"We have argued with them, tried to stop them, but it continues," another sweeper, Shakirat Babatunde, said.

Community efforts and limits

Community leaders say repeated attempts to curb roadside dumping of refuse by residents in the area have yielded little result, despite engagements with waste authorities and waste collectors.

Rukayat Muritala, councillor representing Oke-Afa Ward in Ejigbo LCDA, said several meetings involving LAWMA and private waste collectors had failed to resolve the growing refuse problem.

Mrs Muritala said the local council had attempted to manage the situation by deploying compactor trucks to clear waste from road medians and establishing a task force to discourage illegal dumping.

"The PSP operators are not functioning too well. The reason is because the dumping sites at Igando and Ojota are full. They say they have to go all the way to Epe or Badagry which according to them is more expensive. They said the amount they charge residents has to be increased for them to be more effective," she said.

Taoheed Taiwo, the Ejigbo council chairman, didn't respond to repeated attempts for comments.

This report was facilitated by DevReporting in partnership with Pro-Poor Development Media Network (PDM-Network) and supported by the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC)

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