Many tonnes of plastic waste pollute our major cities, but the paradox of the situation is that it presents an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurs to create immense wealth. Take a ride through the Lagos metropolis or other commercial centres like Port Harcourt, Benin, and others, and you will see piles upon piles of plastic garbage, yet few understand the potentials of those pollutants generating millions of naira as profit.
You can enter the business by either setting up a recycling plant or simply collecting and distributing waste plastic. It is usually easier to start with collecting and distributing, which will help you gain a good understanding of the whole business. The first thing to consider is what type of plastic are recycled? Our investigations show that Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) are the easiest to recycle and commonly accepted by recycling plants. These are the bottles used for coca cola drinks, bottled water and other similar products. These recycled by-products can be used to make products like bags, ropes, furniture, combs, car bumpers, and of course, plastic bottles. This does not mean that other types of plastic cannot be recycled, but PET comes tops and is more easily available.
Having identified the prized waste to target, it is then important to have a good strategy to collect plastic waste. Event centres are a good target to collect plastic bottles and other types of plastic. Most event centres in cities are booked with events weekly, and drinks are usually packed in PET and other plastics. So, after events you can negotiate with the organizers and pack all those wastes to your dump or storage site. You can also put in place robust arrangements with restaurants, hotels and bars to collect their waste. Then also, the popular dump sites across the city could be the main sources of waste collection. As a beginner, you can also liaise with numerous scavengers and waste collectors who are already in the business to save yourself initial startup hitches.
From your dumpsite, you can sell directly to recycling plants but you can also do some more processing to earn more money. First, you earn more money by cleaning and sorting the plastic waste before you sell. You can as well make much more profit by purchasing and baling and cutting machine, which you will use to compress the plastic to smaller sizes. Adding this value gives you more profit as the recycling plant will be more interested with this stage of the product.
To still make more money, you can grind the product after baling and cutting for higher returns. First, the recycling plant will pay more for this stage of the product, and secondly, you may end up paying less for transportation to the recycling plant as the plastic is compressed and your vehicle can move more kilograms in the available space. Equipment required for bailing, cutting and grinding may cost up to N3m, depending on the make and type.
However, the dream of many people in the business would be to set up a recycling plant. It is a no brainer that the entrepreneur will make more money from processing the waste and producing or selling to manufacturers of the end product. There is yet more opportunity in this stage of production. Nigeria, as well as other countries, used to export thousands of tonnes of waste to China every year. The waste was processed and used in making pipes, carpets and other products. But that business has come to an end since China banned the importation of solid waste like mixed paper, plastic bottles and 24 types of solid waste. It therefore presents a huge opportunity to develop Nigeria’s recycling industry.
Some Chinese companies are already investing millions of dollars to start up recycling plants in Nigeria, and it is important that local entrepreneurs also see the opportunity and grab it. What we used to do was export plastic flakes and import the end product from them. Now, we can boost our economy by processing and producing here in Nigeria. We generate up to 30 million metric tons of waste annually and out of this figure, 2.5million metric tons are plastic waste. Lagos alone accounts for almost half of the total waste. Establishing recycling plants will also create employment as well as improve the environment by reducing pollution and improving the ambiance. An average recycling plant may cost between N20m to N30m.
Waste is piling up and with our population of over 170 million people the dumpsites will keep growing, so participating in the huge plastic recycling business is a sustainable and profitable venture.
