The Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA) has recovered 3,000.92 kilograms of recyclable materials across Lagos and Oyo States through its World Cleanup Day 2026 activities, involving 419 participants in community cleanup, recycling awareness and materials recovery initiatives.

The interventions combined community engagement, recyclables buyback schemes and stakeholder collaboration to promote responsible waste management and connect recovered materials to the recycling value chain.

In Agbele community, Ikorodu, Lagos State, the Alliance recovered 2,226kg of recyclable materials, with 301 participants taking part in a community cleanup and recovery exercise.

The initiative was conducted in partnership with the Let’s Do It Nigeria team, the Lagos State Ministry of Environment & Water Resources and the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA). Participants included volunteers, street sweepers, government representatives, environmental organisations, Zyntomax, FBRA’s collection partner in Ikorodu, and member companies of the Alliance.

During the exercise, participants embarked on an awareness walk through the community, collecting waste and recyclable materials along the route. They also engaged residents on responsible waste disposal and explained the importance of recovering materials for recycling.

The Ikorodu programme featured a community buyback scheme that allowed residents to exchange recyclable materials for value through product incentives. The initiative also provided a channel for collected materials to enter the formal recycling chain, with Zyntomax supporting their recovery and collection.

In Ibadan, Oyo State, FBRA recovered a further 774.48kg of recyclable materials and engaged 118 participants through its sponsorship of the Recyclables Buyback scheme at the Oyo Waste Summit 3.0.

The Alliance also contributed to discussions on sustainable waste management at the summit. Its Executive Director, Agharese Onaghise, presented a paper titled ‘the Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging Industry in Nigeria’.

FBRA additionally hosted a panel session featuring six of its member companies, which discussed industry innovations for managing post-consumer packaging materials across different waste streams.

By supporting the buyback scheme alongside its participation in policy and industry discussions, the Alliance linked conversations about sustainable waste management with practical, community-level recycling efforts.

Commenting on the World Cleanup Day activities, Onaghise said the organisation remained committed to developing systems that enable communities to recover recyclable materials more easily and connect them with the recycling value chain.

“For the sustainability of this cleanup initiative, FBRA is working on launching a recyclables collection centre within the Ikorodu community,” Onaghise said.

She explained that accessible collection infrastructure could encourage behavioural change by giving residents a convenient way to recover recyclable materials instead of disposing of them indiscriminately.

The combined activities in Lagos and Oyo brought the total volume of recyclable materials recovered during FBRA’s World Cleanup Day 2026 interventions to 3,000.92kg, with 419 participants directly involved.

The initiatives form part of the Alliance’s wider strategy to strengthen Nigeria’s circular economy by connecting communities, producers, government institutions, waste collectors and recyclers. The approach aims to create practical channels through which post-consumer packaging materials can be returned to productive use through recycling.

Rather than limiting World Cleanup Day to waste collection, FBRA used the occasion to demonstrate how advocacy, industry partnerships, community participation and economic incentives can work together to improve waste recovery.

The interventions also underscored the Alliance’s emphasis on combining stakeholder engagement with practical opportunities for communities to participate in waste management systems and improve the recovery of recyclable materials.

Source: Tribune