Every morning, hundreds of hand-pushed carts weave through Lagos neighbourhoods, markets and streets, collecting waste that formal operators sometimes cannot reach.
For many residents, the cart pusher is more than a waste collector; the operator offers a convenient and affordable way to keep their surroundings clean.
Moving from house to house, cart pushers collect discarded bottles, cartons, metals, aluminium cans, plastics and other materials, often at hours convenient for residents.
However, what appears convenient to residents has become an environmental and regulatory concern for the Lagos authorities, particularly when waste is handled illegally.
The Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) maintains a zero-tolerance policy against illegal cart pushers, saying they undermine the formal waste-management system.
Yet environmentalists, circular-economy experts and informal waste-sector representatives argue that an outright ban may overlook the important role cart pushers play.
They say thousands of households depend on their services, while informal collectors recover recyclable materials that could otherwise end up at disposal facilities.
The stakeholders spoke with reporters on Sunday in Lagos about the place of cart pushers in the state’s waste-management system.
Mr Friday Oku, President of the Association of Scraps and Waste Pickers of Lagos, said informal waste pickers recovered between 20 and 60 per cent of recyclable materials.
He said the actual figure for Lagos remained uncertain because of inadequate data on informal waste recovery activities.
According to him, informal operators recover metals, cartons, nylon, aluminium and cans, contributing to resource recovery and the circular economy.
Oku, however, acknowledged challenges including contamination of recovered materials, poor collection arrangements, inadequate aggregation centres and limited occupational safety.
He called on the government to establish mini recycling collection hubs within communities and local government areas where waste pickers could aggregate and sort materials.
“Without the informal waste picker, there is no circular economy sustainability,” he said.
Oku said formalising the sector could provide operators with identification cards, registration, health insurance, social protection, fair pricing and improved livelihoods.
He cited South Africa, Brazil, India and Colombia as examples of countries where governments had taken steps to integrate informal waste workers into formal systems.
Mr Taiwo Ajewole, CEO of WasteXchange and a circular-economy expert, said cart pushers were helping to address a waste-management gap Lagos could not ignore.
Ajewole said Lagos generated about 13,000 tonnes of waste daily, creating gaps that enabled cart pushers to collect recyclable and non-recyclable materials.
According to him, operators take collected materials to aggregation centres, some of which are described as “illegal dumpsites” because of how activities are conducted there.
He, however, said the aggregation centres performed an important function in the recycling value chain.
“At the aggregation centre, all recyclables are recovered and sold to the formal off-takers,” Ajewole said.
He explained that recyclable materials collected by informal operators eventually reached formal off-takers with the machinery and capacity to process them for local and international markets.
Ajewole advocated integrating informal collectors into the waste-management system at the local level rather than eliminating their activities.
According to him, integration could also create additional revenue for government through appropriate levies.
He said such a system would enable government to recognise informal operators, regulate their activities and derive economic value from recovered materials.
Similarly, Mr Philip Jakpor, Executive Director of Renevlyn Development Initiative, said cart pushers remained attractive because they were readily available to many households.
He said residents often preferred their flexible services to formal operators, who generally worked according to fixed collection schedules.
Jakpor cautioned against blaming cart pushers alone for indiscriminate waste disposal, saying government must provide designated disposal facilities and enforce compliance.
“I would not necessarily put the blame of indiscriminate dumping of waste on the cart pushers,” he said.
For environmentalist and publisher of EnvironNews Nigeria, Mr Michael Simire, cart pushers performed an important function where formal waste services were limited.
He, however, said unregulated operators could obstruct planned urban infrastructure, contribute to traffic problems and undermine environmental management.
Simire said some informal collectors dumped waste into drains, canals and open spaces to avoid disposal costs.
He noted that such practices could worsen flooding by blocking drainage channels and reducing the flow of stormwater.
In spite of this, he said flooding in Lagos had several causes, including poor drainage infrastructure, rapid urbanisation, inadequate maintenance and development in flood-prone areas.
Climate change, he added, had also compounded the state’s recurring flooding challenges.
Mrs Adedamola Ogutuga, Head of Environmental Education at the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), said cart pushers remained popular because of their convenience, flexibility and affordability.
She said some households had established relationships with individual operators who collected waste directly from their homes.
Ogutuga said the environmental problem was not necessarily the cart itself, but what happened to the waste after collection.
Where operators worked outside a regulated system, she said, waste could end up in vacant plots, canals, drains, waterways and other unauthorised locations.
Such practices could cause soil and water contamination, bad odour, disease-vector proliferation, open burning and loss of recyclable materials.
Ogutuga said cart pushers could contribute to plastic pollution, but informal collectors could also remove substantial quantities of recyclable materials from the environment.
“A cart pusher collecting PET bottles and taking them to a recognised recycler is contributing positively to the circular economy,” she said.
According to her, the challenge was to move cart pushers from informal waste disposal into a regulated collection and resource-recovery system.
She recommended registration, identification cards, training, designated transfer points, links with recycling organisations, minimum safety standards and sanctions for illegal dumping.
LAWMA, however, maintains that illegal cart pushing remains incompatible with Lagos’ regulated waste-management framework.
According to the Authority, illegal operators divert waste from licensed Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators authorised to provide domestic waste collection services.
LAWMA said many illegal operators transported waste to unauthorised locations, including road medians, drainage channels, canals and open spaces.
The authority said such practices increased environmental hazards, placed additional burdens on government and weakened the financial sustainability of formal waste management.
It also said the activities undermined operational planning and discouraged investment in modern waste-collection infrastructure.
LAWMA said illegal cart pushers remained active partly because some residents and businesses continued to patronise them instead of using their assigned PSP operators.
The authority said it had adopted environmental advocacy, intelligence gathering, surveillance and enforcement to tackle the problem.
It said its Project WISE teams, working with relevant government agencies, had conducted monitoring and enforcement operations, leading to arrests and prosecution of offenders.
Markets, commercial premises and other facilities found encouraging indiscriminate disposal could face compliance notices, sealing and prosecution, according to LAWMA.
The Authority said it was also working with the Lagos State Environmental Sanitation Corps (KAI), Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and other stakeholders.
In spite of the firm stance, LAWMA said Lagos was investing in infrastructure to modernise waste management and improve collection efficiency.
The interventions include Transfer Loading Stations, Material Recovery Facilities, waste-to-energy projects, expanded recycling initiatives and plans to acquire additional compactor trucks.
LAWMA said the measures were aimed at strengthening the formal system and reducing opportunities for illegal waste handling.
It was reported that the debate over cart pushers reflects a larger dilemma facing Lagos, where rapid urbanisation meets rising waste generation and recurring flooding.
For residents, cart pushers offer convenience and affordable waste collection, while for informal operators, the activity provides livelihoods.
For environmentalists, their work can support recycling when properly regulated, but becomes harmful when recovered materials or residual waste are dumped indiscriminately.
The future of cart pushing in Lagos may therefore depend less on choosing between formal and informal operators and more on creating a transparent, regulated system.
Such integration could protect livelihoods, improve recycling, reduce illegal dumping and help Lagos manage the growing volume of waste generated across the state.
