Mission accomplished in Nigeria

A new project to fight plastic packaging waste

Landbell Group, in consortium with BlackForest Solutions (BFS), has just completed an extended producer responsibility (EPR) advisory mission in Nigeria. The project was conducted within PROBLUE, a multi-donor trust fund administered by the World Bank Group, in response to a request from the Federal Ministry of Environment.

The main beneficiary of the consultancy work was the National Environmental Standards Regulations and Enforcement Agency (NESREA), which reviewed and contributed to two strategy documents that are intended to help implement and enforce EPR for plastic packaging in Nigeria.

The Landbell Group and BFS experts provided guidance on the implementation strategy for an e-registry system, advising on the potential scope of the registry, its governance, institutional set-up, technical design and the planned implementation steps.

The consultants included international benchmarking to present different set-ups and analysed the existing legal framework in Nigeria to propose a strategy adapted to the local context and identify potential gaps.

The second deliverable was a guidance document for the implementation of EPR for plastic packaging. The consultants supported NESREA in defining crucial terms, for example:

• definitions of a producer, collector, waste picker and recycler
• packaging in scope and packaging categorisation, and
• roles, duties and responsibilities of various stakeholders from the public and private sectors, including the envisaged role of NESREA

Furthermore, requirements for setting up and operating collection and recycling facilities and producer responsibility organisations (PROs) were developed. Lastly, a proposal for setting collection, recycling and recovery targets was made. The targets will now be further defined and confirmed during stakeholder consultations led by NESREA.

The project, which was mainly carried out remotely, did involve direct cooperation between the World Bank, NESREA and the consultancy team. In January 2023, the consultants visited Lagos and Abuja and held individual meetings with producers, producer associations, retailers, waste operators (also representing the informal sector) and public stakeholders.

The visit included a one-day workshop, during which valuable feedback was gathered from the sector. This feedback was later included in both deliverables by the project team. The contribution of other donor agencies such as the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the UN Environment Programme is also recognised.

Landbell Group and BFS are looking forward to supporting further EPR developments in Nigeria and are honoured to have been part of the country’s journey towards implementing and enforcing EPR for plastic packaging.