A solar-powered recycling centre opened this week in Onne town, Rivers State (Nigeria), when West Africa Container Terminal (WACT), part of the APM Terminals group, and climate-tech firm GIVO (Garbage In, Value Out) commissioned a community hub designed to process local plastic waste, create livelihoods and operate on renewable energy. The facility, described by GIVO’s chief executive as capable of handling roughly 300 kilograms daily, about 90 metric tonnes a year, is projected to prevent an estimated 2,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually while supporting around 15 direct and 50 indirect jobs in the host community.
The ‘Onne centre’ represents the latest node in GIVO’s expanding network of low-carbon micro-centres that combine collection, digital tracking and onsite processing within a short radius of the communities they serve. GIVO’s model pairs door-to-door collection incentives with an integrated technology platform that records material flows and measures impact, a design intended to make small-scale recycling financially traceable and attractive to local collectors and corporate off-takers. The organization has already deployed similar zero-carbon hubs in Lagos and Abuja and reports cumulative diversion and emissions-avoidance figures from earlier sites that underpin its scaling case.
Timing for the Onne launch is significant because it coincides with policy shifts in Nigeria that increase pressure on producers to solve plastic waste problems at source. Federal authorities, with technical support from UNEP, are moving to implement extended producer responsibility (EPR) rules and tougher plastic-packaging regulations that aim to shift costs and systems back to manufacturers and distributors. These regulatory changes create an operating environment in which verified local collection and recycling services and, the data to demonstrate their performance, will be essential for companies seeking compliance and reputational protection.
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Corporate partners are already signaling how private sector investment can dovetail with regulatory incentives. APM Terminals has rolled out community recycling hubs across its Nigerian operations, including the solar facility in Apapa and the Onne project, as part of a broader sustainability agenda that references on-site renewable power and emissions reductions within port operations. The terminal operator frames such investments as both community development and risk-management measures, reducing local flooding and pollution that can disrupt port access while helping the company meet global decarbonisation commitments. Those commitments form part of an industry-wide push to align logistics operations with net-zero timelines and to demonstrate verifiable reductions in scope-1 and scope-3 impacts.
Local impacts reported at the Onne launch highlight the practical benefits that targeted recycling infrastructure can deliver. Project partners and community leaders emphasised reduced drainage blockages, new income streams for collectors paid per kilogram of material, and opportunities for youth employment and skills development. GIVO and APM Terminals also pointed to prior programmes that tie waste reduction with social outcomes, including training initiatives and school-based activities that reduce single-use consumption and introduce reuse models. These community-level interventions reinforce the case for scaling micro-infrastructure if national EPR schemes are to be effective in practice.
Scaling remains the practical challenge. Stakeholders interviewed in recent reporting and policy briefs say that EPR and bans on selected single-use plastics will create demand for recycling capacity, yet the country’s collection networks, standardized measurement systems and financing mechanisms must expand rapidly to match expected obligations. Digital traceability tools and inter-centre harmonisation are therefore critical; pilots such as the GIVO-Warwick tracking project aim to produce the data streams that buyers, regulators and funders require to underwrite larger investments and verify recycled content claims. Early coordination between corporate programmes and producer responsibility organisations could lower transaction costs and improve compliance outcomes.
The Onne hub provides a working example of how private infrastructure, social programming and policy reform can intersect at community scale. The centre’s immediate measures, material throughput, emissions avoided and jobs created, offer concrete metrics that corporate partners and regulators can use to calibrate wider rollouts. Observers on the circular-economy beat should watch whether Nigeria’s expected EPR rules and plastic-packaging regulations create predictable demand for certified recycling services, and whether public procurement or corporate sourcing policies begin to favour verified low-carbon recyclers. The answer will determine whether isolated wins like Onne convert into a resilient, financeable network capable of closing material loops across urban and coastal Nigeria.
