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NESREA Moves To Integrate Waste Collectors Into EPR Cooperatives

BY CHIKA OKEKE, Abuja
    Prof Innocent Barikor

Determined to close the gap on exclusion, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) has taken firm decision to integrate waste collectors into Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) cooperatives. 

The cooperative-led model of EPR  is expected to capture small scale businesses from the informal sector into the programme. 

Director General of NESREA, Prof Innocent Barikor stated this during a virtual stakeholder sensitization on the cooperative-led EPR model as a formalisation strategy for the informal sector, organised by NESREA for stakeholders in the EPR programme.

He said that the initiative aims to make the EPR ecosystem inclusive by bringing informal waste collectors, sorters, and recyclers into the formal system, giving them access to governance structures, financing, social protection, and environmental compliance support.

"The cooperative-led EPR model presents an opportunity to organise waste actors into recognised cooperatives, provide them with legal identity, digital inclusion, financial access and social protection, while simultaneously strengthening national EPR implementation and environmental data systems," he stated.

He described the model as a social and economic transformation strategy.
Barikor pointed out that through cooperative structures, digital onboarding platforms, traceability systems and the proposed cooperative passport framework, informal workers could gradually transition into formal economic participants with access to enterprise support, financial literacy, health insurance, equipment leasing and other empowerment opportunities.

In his presentation on cooperative-led EPR model, Chief Steward of the Nigeria Environmental Stewardship Cooperative Society (NESCOOP), Dr. Peter Ayim said that the framework provides Nigeria a pathway for scalable, inclusive circular economy.

Ayim informed that the cooperative-led model will address structural challenges faced by informal waste workers such as their lack of formal recognition, economic vulnerability, occupational hazards, health and safety risks, and social exclusion.

He highlighted some countries implementing the model as Brazil, Colombia, India, South Africa , and European Union member states, pointing out that global experience confirmed that cooperative-led systems are the most effective pathway for integrating informal waste actors into structured EPR frameworks that delivers both environmental sustainability and inclusive economic growth.

Present at the virtual meeting were key players in the EPR value chain, including the Recyclers Association of Nigeria (RAN), Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), E-Waste Producers Responsibility Organization of Nigeria (EPRON), Rural Women Energy Security (RUWES), among others.

This was contained in a statement by the Assistant Director of Press, Nwamaka Ejiofor in Abuja. 
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