Health
Broken system behind Lagos waste crisis
Months after heaps of refuse began resurfacing across Lagos despite repeated government interventions, DAYO OYEWO examines the hidden challenges driving the crisis — from failing dumpsites and deteriorating infrastructure to operational bottlenecks confronting Private Sector Participation operators
For months, heaps of refuse have remained on Lagos streets, medians and drainage channels, turning once-familiar neighbourhoods into sprawling unofficial dumpsites.
But behind the stench and mounting piles lies a deeper problem: a waste management system struggling under the weight of overloaded dumpsites, deteriorating infrastructure, stranded trucks and mounting operational pressures.
As Private Sector Participation operators spend hours and, in some cases, days waiting to discharge waste, the delays ripple through the city, leaving fewer trucks available to collect refuse from already overwhelmed communities.
The PUNCH traces the journey of Lagos’ waste from neighbourhoods to disposal sites and uncovers the infrastructure failures, operational bottlenecks, alleged queue manipulation and policy gaps keeping the city buried under refuse.
Along the Ejigbo-Idimu Road, black nylon bags filled with household waste have swallowed sections of the road median. Flies swarm around decomposing food while pedestrians cover their noses as they pass.
A few hundred metres away, near Idimu Bus Stop, another heap has grown on the median, with fresh waste dumped daily on piles that have remained for weeks.
“The refuse you are looking at has been here for four months. Some of it has decomposed completely, dried under the sun and become wet again whenever it rains. Once the rain falls, the smell becomes unbearable. We have never experienced anything this bad,” said a resident, Kunle Osoba.
What is happening along Ejigbo-Idimu Road is not isolated. From Agege to Ikotun, Jakande Estate, Surulere, Iyana Ipaja, Oshodi, Abule Egba, Mushin, Isolo and Ajao Estate, refuse has become a permanent feature of the landscape.
Overflowing communal bins have turned into makeshift dumpsites, while medians, drainage channels and road shoulders have become unofficial refuse collection points.
For residents, the problem has persisted for months.
“The smell is terrible, especially whenever it rains. The stench enters our houses. Sometimes we cannot even leave our windows open. Flies have taken over everywhere. We have reported the issue several times, but nothing has changed,” said Kunle Ayeni, a resident of Igando.
Along Isheri-Jakande Road, Deola Davies said residents had gradually accepted the situation as normal.
“This issue has become part of everyday life. People dump refuse on the median because there is nowhere else to take it. The PSP operators are overwhelmed, and the government does not seem to understand what residents are passing through,” she said.
The crisis is also hurting businesses. At Oshodi Road, a roadside trader, Biola, said customers were increasingly avoiding her shop because of the offensive smell.
“It is already affecting my business. We are paying our money regularly, but the evacuation of refuse is not as regular as it used to be,” she lamented.
Inside Olusosun dumpsite
While residents have directed much of their frustration at the Lagos Waste Management Authority, findings by The PUNCH indicate that the refuse littering the streets is a symptom of a deeper operational crisis, with a major bottleneck at the Olusosun dumpsite in Ojota, the state’s busiest disposal facility.
Commissioned in 1992, Olusosun receives waste from hundreds of Private Sector Participation operators. Under normal circumstances, a compactor collects waste from neighbourhoods, discharges it at the dumpsite and returns within hours for another trip.
Operators, however, told our correspondent that the process now takes days.
A visit to the facility revealed long queues of refuse compactors stretching from the entrance. Drivers waited in their vehicles or sought shelter under makeshift sheds, uncertain when they would be able to discharge their loads.
The road into the facility was also in poor condition, with muddy and stagnant pools of water from recent rainfall. Several trucks struggled through the mud, while others were immobilised by mechanical faults.
One operator, who identified himself as Abdullahi, said the situation became almost unbearable during rainfall.
“If you came here while it was raining, you would not even attempt to enter. The water becomes so deep that movement has to stop completely. This road has been bad for a very long time. Rain only makes everything worse,” he said.
Another operator, Diran, said one of his company’s compactors spent an entire week inside the facility.
“My truck entered on Wednesday and came out the following Wednesday. My boss eventually told us to stop coming here because it had become a waste of time. Imagine one truck being tied down for one week. During that period, several communities that the truck was supposed to serve were left without waste collection,” he said.
Another driver, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said operators received little assistance when their trucks became stuck.
“If your truck gets stuck, nobody rescues you. You are left on your own to find a way out. Sometimes trucks even overturn because the roads are so bad. Before you know it, you’ve lost an entire day without discharging your waste,” he said.
For operator Dehinde Alimi, the problem is not a shortage of trucks but the time lost accessing and exiting the dumpsites.
“There are enough trucks in Lagos to evacuate waste. The real problem is that they spend too much time waiting to discharge refuse because of the terrible conditions inside the dumpsites,” he said.
He added that poor internal roads had reduced the number of trips trucks could make daily, while rising repair costs, diesel prices and maintenance expenses were putting additional pressure on operators.
But the access roads are not the only challenge.
Operators also identified shortages and frequent breakdowns of heavy-duty equipment as a major constraint at Olusosun. Caterpillar machines are used to push, spread and compact waste, creating space for incoming trucks to discharge their loads.
During the visit, about three caterpillars were observed working, while another had been moved to the main road for repairs. Operators said the available equipment was insufficient for the volume of waste arriving at the facility.
One operator, who requested anonymity, said additional functional machines were needed to prevent operations from grinding to a halt whenever one broke down.
“Sometimes the machine stops working completely because of a fault. Once that happens, operations almost come to a standstill. No truck can discharge until the machine is repaired or another one is brought in, and that can take several hours or even longer,” he said.
Another operator said the ageing equipment had made frequent breakdowns almost inevitable.
“When the caterpillar is not working, refuse cannot be pushed back to create space. That means trucks cannot offload, so they remain in the queue. As more trucks arrive, the queue keeps getting longer, and operators lose valuable working hours,” he said.
The prolonged delays at the dumpsite mean compactors make fewer trips each day, leaving waste uncollected in neighbourhoods across Lagos.
What residents see as refuse piling up on their streets, therefore, may be only the visible end of a much larger problem: a waste evacuation system struggling under deteriorating infrastructure, inadequate equipment and mounting operational pressures.
Alleged illegal payments
Beyond poor roads and inadequate equipment, some operators alleged that the congestion at the dumpsite had created opportunities for officials to exploit the situation.
According to PSP operators who spoke to our correspondent, the queue system at Olusosun had been compromised by alleged illegal payments and preferential treatment.
They claimed that while the dumping process generally followed procedure during the day when senior officials were present, the situation changed at night, with some trucks allegedly bypassing long queues through unofficial arrangements.
One operator, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation, alleged that drivers sometimes paid to jump ahead of trucks that had waited for hours or even days.
“In the daytime, everything follows procedure because the senior officials are around. But at night, some people find their way in. If you know the right people, you can move ahead. If not, you remain in the queue,” he said.
The operator alleged that drivers paid about N15,000 to bypass the queue and that the transactions were conducted discreetly to prevent fleet owners and managers from finding out.
“Each truck pays about N15,000 to beat the queue and dump. Before you pay, you have to convince them that the money is coming from your own earnings and not from your manager because they don’t want the managers to know,” he alleged.
He added that some managers were, however, aware of the practice and occasionally supported drivers with additional money.
The alleged payments, operators claimed, did not end once trucks entered the dumpsite. Another operator alleged that drivers sometimes had to pay caterpillar operators to have their refuse pushed and their trucks attended to promptly.
“The same thing applies to the tractor or caterpillar operators. After struggling to get into the dumpsite, you still have to settle the machine operator. You must have about N2,000, otherwise you may remain there for a long time before your refuse is pushed and you can leave,” he alleged.
Operators said the alleged unofficial charges added to the financial burden of PSP operators already grappling with vehicle repairs, fuel costs and prolonged delays.
Failed alternative dumpsites
With congestion at Olusosun worsening, many PSP operators have diverted trucks to disposal facilities in Ikorodu, Epe, Badagry and Sagamu in neighbouring Ogun State.
However, the alternative sites have provided limited relief, with operators citing longer distances, restricted operating hours and poor road access.
A PSP manager, Odetola, said the longer journeys had significantly increased operating and maintenance costs.
“Unlike the Olusosun dumpsite, some of the alternative disposal facilities do not operate round the clock. If you get there past 7 pm, you cannot dispose of your waste. So we have to wait till the following day. This causes a reduction in the number of evacuation trips our trucks can make daily,” he said.
He said increased truck traffic had also worsened access roads to some of the alternative facilities.
“When you have more trucks using a particular route without maintenance, it will become almost impassable in a matter of time, and that is what we are facing. That is why we keep returning to Olusosun to queue,” he added.
The situation became more complicated after operators redirected to Sagamu were stopped from dumping waste there following resistance from residents and local authorities.
On July 5, the Chairman of Sagamu Local Government Area, Afolabi Odulate, impounded several refuse trucks allegedly linked to the Lagos Waste Management Authority for discharging waste at an unauthorised location in the Sotubo area along the Sagamu–Ikorodu Expressway.
Odulate said the action followed complaints from residents and community leaders over the environmental and public health implications of transporting refuse from Lagos into Ogun State.
Following the enforcement action, several refuse trucks abandoned the Sagamu route and returned to already overstretched disposal facilities in Lagos, further intensifying congestion at the state’s existing dumpsites.
Gap between policy and reality
Lagos generates an estimated 13,000 metric tonnes of municipal solid waste daily, making it one of Africa’s largest waste-producing cities. But as the population grows, infrastructure for collecting, transporting and disposing of the waste has struggled to keep pace, leaving residents to contend with recurring refuse heaps across the metropolis.
The Lagos Waste Management Authority has announced several interventions in recent months, including intensified evacuation, route reviews, infrastructure rehabilitation, increased monitoring of Private Sector Participation operators and the clearing of refuse black spots.
According to LAWMA’s May 2026 operational performance report, its 442 licensed PSP operators evacuated 418,500 tonnes of waste during the month, an average of 13,200 tonnes daily. The agency also said 173 refuse black spots were cleared and that it received 474 complaints and service requests from residents.
LAWMA said it currently deploys 77 compactor trucks, five skip trucks and 12 other operational equipment units to support waste evacuation across the state.
Yet, visits to several communities revealed overflowing communal bins and refuse piled up on road medians, drainage channels and open spaces.
For residents, the real measure of success is not the volume of waste reported as evacuated but whether refuse disappears from their streets.
Expert opinion
The National President of the Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, Olubunmi Durojaye, attributed the persistent crisis to inadequate infrastructure and overstretched disposal facilities.
Durojaye said government interventions had failed to produce the desired results because existing infrastructure could no longer cope with Lagos’ rapidly growing population.
“The infrastructure expected to support effective waste collection, transportation and disposal is overwhelmed. The facilities are there, but they can no longer cope because Lagos continues to experience rapid population growth. The more people you have, the more waste is generated,” he said.
He said Olusosun was already substantially filled and that the absence of adequate alternatives had forced continued reliance on the facility despite plans to decommission it.
“Asking operators to go to places like Sagamu or other distant locations is not a solution. It only compounds the problem because those trucks are expected to make several trips daily between communities and disposal sites. Once you extend their journey by another 90 kilometres, it negatively affects service delivery,” he added.
Durojaye described the reintroduction of monthly environmental sanitation as a positive step but said sanitation campaigns alone could not resolve the crisis without functional disposal infrastructure.
He identified prolonged turnaround time at disposal facilities as one of the biggest obstacles to effective waste evacuation and said the association, Lagos State Government and LAWMA were working to rehabilitate access roads to disposal sites.
A waste management policy expert, Philip Obuesi, however, said the government needed greater political will and more transfer loading stations to address the crisis.
“Olusosun dumpsite was designed as a landfill, not a 20-million-person dumpsite. Poor compaction, fires, leachate and long turnaround times for trucks mean waste sits on the road for days before it even gets there,” Obuesi said.
He called for the immediate decongestion of Olusosun and the establishment of three or four additional transfer loading stations in areas such as Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu and Ajah.
“Waste shouldn’t travel two to three hours to one site. Shorter trips will equal faster evacuation and cleaner streets. Lagos doesn’t have too much waste. We have a collection bottleneck plus no sorting and one overloaded dumpsite,” he said.
Obuesi added that Lagos would continue to experience recurring crises unless waste evacuation was decentralised and waste management was treated as a resource rather than simply a disposal problem.
LAWMA response
Responding to the findings, the Managing Director of LAWMA, Muyiwa Gbadegesin, said the authority had begun rehabilitating access roads and other infrastructure at its disposal facilities to reduce PSP operators’ turnaround time.
Gbadegesin said turnaround time had improved at Road E, although the improvement had attracted more PSP operators to the facility. He said rehabilitation was also being extended to Sites B and C, Iwelepe, Badagry and Ukiosho.
He stressed that the interventions were transitional and were not intended to keep the dumpsites operational indefinitely.
“All the work we are carrying out is aimed at eventually winding down activities at each of these dump sites. The immediate objective is to make operations easier and improve turnaround time during this transitional period,” he said.
According to him, LAWMA plans to fence the facilities and conduct scientific studies and environmental surveys before remediation and eventual decommissioning.
“Once the necessary measures are in place, we will treat the waste and decommission the dump sites. In some cases, the sites will be replaced with material recovery facilities or waste-to-energy plants,” he added.
On allegations that PSP operators paid to jump queues, Gbadegesin said LAWMA frowned on such practices and had strengthened monitoring at the dumpsites.
He said a joint PSP dumpsite committee had been revitalised to monitor activities and ensure compliance, while reporting systems had been improved to track equipment efficiency, downtime and truck turnaround times.
Security, he added, had also been strengthened through improved lighting, CCTV cameras and additional personnel.
“We strongly frown upon such practices,” he said.
Gbadegesin said LAWMA was also engaging Civil Defence personnel to improve security around the facilities, particularly the surrounding bushes.
He disclosed that the Iwelepe landfill had been closed for almost two years and was earmarked for a waste-to-energy project in partnership with Harvest Waste.
He said similar projects were being considered for other dumpsites, including Badagry, although he said such projects could take between three and five years to become operational.
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