Waste streams across Lagos
The Obalende bus terminus is one of Lagos’s most important transport nodes and a ‘graveyard’ for old danfos, which in Yoruba means ‘hurry’. These yellow‑painted minibuses form the backbone of Lagos’s informal transport system and are mostly second‑hand imports from the global north. Located in the heart of Lagos Island, Obalende is one of the first areas to be developed east of the lagoon that splits Lagos into two main halves: the Island and the Mainland. It receives a large portion of urban commuters daily, especially those entering Lagos Island for work.
Obalende plays a critical role in the cycle of material reuse across the city. The life of a danfo does not end at retirement; it continues through a vast network of informal markets and recyclers that sustain entire communities. Their metal parts are either repurposed to fix other buses or sold as scrap at markets such as Owode Onirin. Located about 25km away on the Lagos Mainland, Owode Onirin, which means ‘money iron market’ in Yoruba, is a major hub for recycled metals. Waste collectors scour the city’s demolition sites for brass and mild steel; they find copper, bronze and aluminium in discarded vehicles. These materials are then processed and sold to companies such as African Foundries and Nigerian Foundries, as well as to local smiths who transform them into building parts, moulds and decorative objects. Sorters, welders and artisans form the backbone of this circular micro‑economy. Their labour breathes new life into discarded matter.
Lagos has a State Waste Management Authority, but it is fraught with politicking and inefficient in managing the city’s complex waste cycle. In the absence of intelligent state strategies, it falls on people to engineer solutions. They add armatures, build networks and modulate the static thresholds and borders imposed by the state. Today, these techniques and intelligences, born out of scarcity, are collectively labelled ‘informality’, a term that flattens their ingenuity.
Across the streets of Obalende and around its central roundabout, kiosks and pop‑up shops dominate the landscape. Most are constructed from materials such as timber reclaimed from collapsed buildings or fallen fascias, along with salvaged tarpaulins. Stones and concrete blocks found at demolition sites are moulded into anchors using discarded plastic paint buckets, serving as bases for umbrellas offering relief from the scorching Lagos sun. To anticipate flash flooding, many structures are raised slightly above ground on short stilts. Space, which is in short supply, is creatively repurposed to serve different functions at various times of the day; a single location might host breakfast vendors in the morning, fruit sellers in the afternoon and medicine hawkers at night.
Due to its proximity to the city centre, Obalende experiences constant population shifts. Most entering the city at this node have no means of livelihood and often become salvagers. Under the curling ends of the Third Mainland Bridge, for example, a community of migrants gathers, surviving by scavenging motor parts, sometimes from old danfos, zinc roofing sheets and other materials of meagre value. Discarded mattresses, bedding and mosquito nets are repurposed as shelter beneath the noisy overpass, which becomes both workplace and home. In the absence of supportive state frameworks, communities like those in Obalende create micro‑responses to urban precarity. Their fluid, multifunctional spaces are adaptive and resilient architectures resulting from necessity, survival and material intelligence.
‘Informality as a way of life is inherently circular in its use of space and materials’
In Lagos, the most populous city in Nigeria and one of the most populated in Africa, two thirds of the population live on less than USa day, according to Amnesty International. This speaks not only to income levels but to multidimensional poverty. Unlike global cities such as Mumbai, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro, where poorer demographics are largely confined to specific neighbourhoods at the margins, informality in Lagos is not peripheral but integral to how the city functions, defying the rigid thresholds and boundaries of formal urban planning.
Across Lagos, self‑sustaining circular economies flourish. Orile, a metal market located on the mainland, is one of the sites where discarded metals from sites in Lagos can be sold as part of a recycling system. Further out in the suburbs of Lagos, also on the mainland, is the Katangua Market, which is the biggest second‑hand clothes market in the city. In Nigeria’s largest hardware technology hub, Computer Village, just south of Lagos in Ikeja, used electrical and electronic equipmentis sold for parts. A TRT World report notes that about 18,300 tonnes of UEEE arrive in Nigeria annually – although the number varies in other studies to as much as 54,000 tonnes smuggled in – with the majority coming from Europe, closely followed by the US and China.
Computer Village evolved into a dense network of shops, stalls and kiosks between 1998 and 2000, just before Nigeria adopted early digital cellular network technology. The market sits just minutes from the local airport and the Ikeja High Court, but its edges are fluid, spilling out from the Ikeja Underbridge. Over time, formal plots have dissolved into an evolving mesh of trade; the streets are lined with kiosks and carts, built from repurposed plywood, corrugated metal and tarpaulin, that come and go. Space is not owned but claimed, temporarily held, sublet and reshuffled.
Today, Computer Village generates an estimated USbillion in annual revenue. Yet most of the shops lack permanence and are constantly at risk of demolition or displacement. In March this year, over 500 shops were demolished overnight at Owode Onirin; in 2023, shopping complexes at Computer Village were torn down in a similar way. The state has continuously announced plans to relocate Computer Village to Katangua Market, with demolition of parts of Katangua Market itself making way for the move in 2020. Urban development patterns in Lagos prioritise formal sectors while ignoring self‑organised makers and traders. This contributes to spatial exclusion, where such communities are often under threat of eviction and relocation.
Discarded devices eventually make their way to landfills. Olusosun, in the very heart of Lagos, is one of Africa’s largest landfills. Over 10,000 tonnes of waste are delivered daily, and more than 5,000 scavengers live and work here, sifting through an artificial mountain of refuse in search of value: aluminium, copper, plastic, cloth. The waste stream, enlarged by the influx of used hardware and fast fashion from the global north, creates both livelihood and hazard. Recent studies have shown that most of the residents in and around the site are exposed to harmful air conditions that affect their lungs. Additionally, the water conditions around the site show infiltration of toxic substances. Scavengers have lost their lives in the process of harvesting metals from discarded electronics.
More than a landfill, Olusosun is a stage for the politics of waste in the global south. Poor regulation enables the flow of unserviceable imports; widespread poverty creates demand for cheap, second‑hand goods. The result is a fragile, and at times dangerous, ecosystem where the absence of the state makes room for informal innovation, such as space reuse and temporary architecture, material upcycling and recycling. In Olusosun, metals are often extracted, crushed and smelted through dangerous processes like open burning. Copper and gold harvested from the ashes then make their way back into products and institutions, such as the insets of bronze or aluminium in a piece of furniture that might eventually travel back to the global north. In its usual fashion, the government has promised to decommission the Olusosun site, but little has been seen in terms of an effective plan to repurpose the site under the state’s so‑called ‘advanced waste treatment initiative’.
Informality as a way of life is inherently circular in its use of space and materials. It embodies adaptability, resilience and an intuitive response to economic and environmental conditions. The self‑built infrastructures in Lagos reveal the creativity and resilience of communities navigating the challenges of urban life. Now is the time for designers, policymakers and community leaders to work together and rethink urban development in a way that is more sustainable and responsive to the needs of the people who make cities thrive. The question is not whether informal economies will continue to exist, but how they can be designed into wider city planning – making them part of the solution, not the problem.
Featured in the May 2025 issue: Circularity
Lead image: Olympia De Maismont / AFP / Getty
2025-05-30
Reuben J Brown
Share
#waste #streams #across #lagosWaste streams across Lagos
The Obalende bus terminus is one of Lagos’s most important transport nodes and a ‘graveyard’ for old danfos, which in Yoruba means ‘hurry’. These yellow‑painted minibuses form the backbone of Lagos’s informal transport system and are mostly second‑hand imports from the global north. Located in the heart of Lagos Island, Obalende is one of the first areas to be developed east of the lagoon that splits Lagos into two main halves: the Island and the Mainland. It receives a large portion of urban commuters daily, especially those entering Lagos Island for work.
Obalende plays a critical role in the cycle of material reuse across the city. The life of a danfo does not end at retirement; it continues through a vast network of informal markets and recyclers that sustain entire communities. Their metal parts are either repurposed to fix other buses or sold as scrap at markets such as Owode Onirin. Located about 25km away on the Lagos Mainland, Owode Onirin, which means ‘money iron market’ in Yoruba, is a major hub for recycled metals. Waste collectors scour the city’s demolition sites for brass and mild steel; they find copper, bronze and aluminium in discarded vehicles. These materials are then processed and sold to companies such as African Foundries and Nigerian Foundries, as well as to local smiths who transform them into building parts, moulds and decorative objects. Sorters, welders and artisans form the backbone of this circular micro‑economy. Their labour breathes new life into discarded matter.
Lagos has a State Waste Management Authority, but it is fraught with politicking and inefficient in managing the city’s complex waste cycle. In the absence of intelligent state strategies, it falls on people to engineer solutions. They add armatures, build networks and modulate the static thresholds and borders imposed by the state. Today, these techniques and intelligences, born out of scarcity, are collectively labelled ‘informality’, a term that flattens their ingenuity.
Across the streets of Obalende and around its central roundabout, kiosks and pop‑up shops dominate the landscape. Most are constructed from materials such as timber reclaimed from collapsed buildings or fallen fascias, along with salvaged tarpaulins. Stones and concrete blocks found at demolition sites are moulded into anchors using discarded plastic paint buckets, serving as bases for umbrellas offering relief from the scorching Lagos sun. To anticipate flash flooding, many structures are raised slightly above ground on short stilts. Space, which is in short supply, is creatively repurposed to serve different functions at various times of the day; a single location might host breakfast vendors in the morning, fruit sellers in the afternoon and medicine hawkers at night.
Due to its proximity to the city centre, Obalende experiences constant population shifts. Most entering the city at this node have no means of livelihood and often become salvagers. Under the curling ends of the Third Mainland Bridge, for example, a community of migrants gathers, surviving by scavenging motor parts, sometimes from old danfos, zinc roofing sheets and other materials of meagre value. Discarded mattresses, bedding and mosquito nets are repurposed as shelter beneath the noisy overpass, which becomes both workplace and home. In the absence of supportive state frameworks, communities like those in Obalende create micro‑responses to urban precarity. Their fluid, multifunctional spaces are adaptive and resilient architectures resulting from necessity, survival and material intelligence.
‘Informality as a way of life is inherently circular in its use of space and materials’
In Lagos, the most populous city in Nigeria and one of the most populated in Africa, two thirds of the population live on less than USa day, according to Amnesty International. This speaks not only to income levels but to multidimensional poverty. Unlike global cities such as Mumbai, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro, where poorer demographics are largely confined to specific neighbourhoods at the margins, informality in Lagos is not peripheral but integral to how the city functions, defying the rigid thresholds and boundaries of formal urban planning.
Across Lagos, self‑sustaining circular economies flourish. Orile, a metal market located on the mainland, is one of the sites where discarded metals from sites in Lagos can be sold as part of a recycling system. Further out in the suburbs of Lagos, also on the mainland, is the Katangua Market, which is the biggest second‑hand clothes market in the city. In Nigeria’s largest hardware technology hub, Computer Village, just south of Lagos in Ikeja, used electrical and electronic equipmentis sold for parts. A TRT World report notes that about 18,300 tonnes of UEEE arrive in Nigeria annually – although the number varies in other studies to as much as 54,000 tonnes smuggled in – with the majority coming from Europe, closely followed by the US and China.
Computer Village evolved into a dense network of shops, stalls and kiosks between 1998 and 2000, just before Nigeria adopted early digital cellular network technology. The market sits just minutes from the local airport and the Ikeja High Court, but its edges are fluid, spilling out from the Ikeja Underbridge. Over time, formal plots have dissolved into an evolving mesh of trade; the streets are lined with kiosks and carts, built from repurposed plywood, corrugated metal and tarpaulin, that come and go. Space is not owned but claimed, temporarily held, sublet and reshuffled.
Today, Computer Village generates an estimated USbillion in annual revenue. Yet most of the shops lack permanence and are constantly at risk of demolition or displacement. In March this year, over 500 shops were demolished overnight at Owode Onirin; in 2023, shopping complexes at Computer Village were torn down in a similar way. The state has continuously announced plans to relocate Computer Village to Katangua Market, with demolition of parts of Katangua Market itself making way for the move in 2020. Urban development patterns in Lagos prioritise formal sectors while ignoring self‑organised makers and traders. This contributes to spatial exclusion, where such communities are often under threat of eviction and relocation.
Discarded devices eventually make their way to landfills. Olusosun, in the very heart of Lagos, is one of Africa’s largest landfills. Over 10,000 tonnes of waste are delivered daily, and more than 5,000 scavengers live and work here, sifting through an artificial mountain of refuse in search of value: aluminium, copper, plastic, cloth. The waste stream, enlarged by the influx of used hardware and fast fashion from the global north, creates both livelihood and hazard. Recent studies have shown that most of the residents in and around the site are exposed to harmful air conditions that affect their lungs. Additionally, the water conditions around the site show infiltration of toxic substances. Scavengers have lost their lives in the process of harvesting metals from discarded electronics.
More than a landfill, Olusosun is a stage for the politics of waste in the global south. Poor regulation enables the flow of unserviceable imports; widespread poverty creates demand for cheap, second‑hand goods. The result is a fragile, and at times dangerous, ecosystem where the absence of the state makes room for informal innovation, such as space reuse and temporary architecture, material upcycling and recycling. In Olusosun, metals are often extracted, crushed and smelted through dangerous processes like open burning. Copper and gold harvested from the ashes then make their way back into products and institutions, such as the insets of bronze or aluminium in a piece of furniture that might eventually travel back to the global north. In its usual fashion, the government has promised to decommission the Olusosun site, but little has been seen in terms of an effective plan to repurpose the site under the state’s so‑called ‘advanced waste treatment initiative’.
Informality as a way of life is inherently circular in its use of space and materials. It embodies adaptability, resilience and an intuitive response to economic and environmental conditions. The self‑built infrastructures in Lagos reveal the creativity and resilience of communities navigating the challenges of urban life. Now is the time for designers, policymakers and community leaders to work together and rethink urban development in a way that is more sustainable and responsive to the needs of the people who make cities thrive. The question is not whether informal economies will continue to exist, but how they can be designed into wider city planning – making them part of the solution, not the problem.
Featured in the May 2025 issue: Circularity
Lead image: Olympia De Maismont / AFP / Getty
2025-05-30
Reuben J Brown
Share
#waste #streams #across #lagos
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