There has been an uproar over the plan by the Federal Government to permit the importation of certain waste items into the country. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria have strongly condemned the federal government’s bid to import non-hazardous waste from the European Union (EU), warning that such a move could exacerbate the country’s waste management crisis. Nigerian Tribune learnt that certain civil society groups planned to double down on their stance against the planned move by the Federal Government using the upcoming Day of Zero Waste on March 30 to amplify their message.
However, an expert on environmentally sound management of waste, Professor Percy Onianwa, Executive Director, Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for the African Region (BCCC-Africa), has described trade in waste as “industrial symbiosis” which is part of the circular economy.
He explained that the transboundary movement of waste is controlled under the Basel Convention which Nigeria is signatory to. BCCC-Africa has been working according to the core functions defined by Basel Convention in the Framework Agreement between the Secretariat of the Basel Convention and the Federal Government of Nigeria. As a regional coordinating Centre, BCCC-Africa has been actively involved in international consultations and expert group meetings on hazardous waste and sound chemicals management.
How the protest started
Trouble began when last month, the European Commission said it received requests from Nigeria and 23 other non-members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries seeking inclusion in the list of nations eligible to import non-hazardous waste from the European Union.
It said in a statement that the request was made in line with the new Waste Shipments Regulation, introduced as part of the EU’s Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan.
What CSOs are saying
Reacting, in a joint statement, Nigerian environmental groups—including members of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) Nigeria, Community Development Advocacy Foundation (CODAF), Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), Zero Waste Ambassadors (ZeWA), and Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI)—denounced the government’s involvement in what they termed “waste colonialism.”
The CSOs highlighted Nigeria’s severe waste management challenges, noting that the country generates over 32 million tons of waste annually. Lagos alone produces about 13,000 metric tons daily, yet a significant portion remains uncollected, ending up in open dumpsites, drains, or being burned. This lack of proper waste management leads to severe environmental and public health hazards. “The informal waste sector plays a crucial role in waste collection and recycling, yet it operates with little recognition or support,” the CSOs said.
Dr. Leslie Adogame, speaking on behalf of GAIA Nigeria members, said: “The uncontrolled disposal of waste also threatens biodiversity, as plastics and other pollutants harm marine and terrestrial ecosystems,” he added. As if not enough, Nigeria till date does not have any sanitary landfills to manage its increasing land based waste.”
The Executive director, Renevlyn Development Initiative, Philip Jakpor, said, “It’s unfortunate to learn that Nigeria is pleading and even has to apply and be vetted to be included in a list of countries to import waste. Mind you, waste is waste even if it’s labelled non-hazardous as what our nation applied to receive from the EU had been termed.
“We are a nation already grappling with waste management issues and now to degenerate to the level of applying for EU waste is extremely demeaning.”
The Executive Director of CODAF, Richard Benin, reminded the government that Nigeria’s decision to increase its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) from 43 per cent to 45 per cent was partly due to commitments in the waste management sector. “Nigeria must ban waste imports and focus on managing local waste rather than becoming a dumping ground for foreign waste,” he said.
Expert speaks
However, responding to the issue, Professor Onianwa, in an interview said: “The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted on 22 March 1989 and entered into force in May 1992. It has been very effective using its control mechanism called the Prior Informed Consent Procedure.
“Every party to the convention has what is called the competent authority and the focal point. The relationship between the focal point and competent authority between one country and another is used as a mechanism for determining whether a shipment of hazardous waste should move from one country to another or not. It has been working very effectively. If you go to the Basel website under the reporting mechanisms all the countries that carry out such transboundary movements are expected to make reports and you can determine from the website which transboundary movements has occurred for such hazardous and what we call ‘other waste.’”
‘Movement of waste not necessarily criminal’
Speaking further he said, “Waste is not necessarily criminal to move from one part of the world to another.” He noted that Nigeria’s past experience with the Koko waste dumping incident of 1989 has “sort of given us the jitters so any time we hear of waste coming into the country there is that panic.”
He, however, explained that at any one time trade in waste is going on. “Waste is actually a commodity. It supports the economy and it supports the environment in many ways. First, the raw material of one industry may be derived from the waste of another industry either local or across borders.
“When waste is used in this manner, you reduce the tendency to over-exploit natural resources, and this process is also used to recycle waste and to treat hazardous waste in an environmentally sound manner. So we should not necessarily criminalise all transboundary movement of waste. I do agree that there is illegal trafficking of hazardous waste, and the Basel Convention clearly specifies what is illegal, but most of the transactions on waste are legal,” he said.
Does Nigeria have capacity to handle imported waste?
Responding to the question of why the government was importing waste, the Professor of Chemistry (Analytical/Environmental) at University of Ibadan, said, “The importation of waste is not done by government itself.”
Professor Onianwa said, “It is industries that apply to government for permits to import those waste to use for production processes. In the particular case of the application that Nigeria made, there are two items in question: one is the refuse derived fuels that are used for firing cement kilns and furnaces in production processes; the other is fibre and mutilated rags that are used for manufacturing blankets. The Basel Convention in its manual clearly defines what is hazardous and non-hazardous. There are 14 characteristics of hazardous waste such as having oxidizing property, being infectious, being able to generate gases that are flammable. The 14th which is called class H.13 states that if any substance that ordinarily is not hazardous under whatever conditions of disposal or handling tends to produce hazardous material, then that original substance is classified as hazardous. So, we should not break down the line between hazardous and non-hazardous.”
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The BCCC-Africa executive director added that the importation of waste into Nigeria is not new. He explained that the Federal Ministry of Environment has taken further steps with respect to the two types of waste it has applied to import.
“Waste are classified into three: hazardous, non-hazardous and other waste. The other waste is a group of waste that are of sufficient concern to be placed in a category called other waste. The prior informed consent procedure does not apply to non-hazardous waste. It only applies to hazardous and other waste. The waste we are talking about now is under non-hazardous category. There is something called national definition of hazardous and other waste which means apart from the list of waste streams that are in the Basel Convention, a country can choose to determine what is its own hazardous and other waste. These two wastes are ordinarily non-hazardous, but Nigeria has placed them under other waste for several years, which means to import them you have to go through the rigorous prior informed consent procedure which is something commendable and will be recognized by the EU as a step to show that due diligence is in place for even non-hazardous waste that we are interested in.”
Also speaking on the matter, Director, Department of Pollution Control and Environmental Health, Federal Ministry of Environment, Mrs Bahijjahtu Abubakar, said: “We’re not importing plastics. We are importing those two because we need them for cement production, blankets, baby shawls, sweaters, knitting wool production, and others. Those are the two that Nigeria has applied for because we don’t have them and that is the essence of Basel Convention, the transboundary movement of waste. Before you apply and before you get them, there’s what is called a prior informed consent, which means that before they leave there, that government takes full responsibility of the process, whether the United Kingdom, Brussels, Germany.”
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