(MON) EARN AS YOU WASTE

OJUELEGBA, Nigeria — On the bustling streets of this central Lagos neighborhood, it’s easy to buy a drink. Hawkers weave between buses and motorcycles with wheelbarrows of bottled water and canned beverages. Finding a bin for the empty container is much harder. Many end up on the ground.

Glass, cardboard, aluminum and — most commonly — plastic collect in piles at busy junctions and in open gutters, mixed with food waste and refuse from nearby shops and homes. Drains clog, and stagnant water lingers.

Bayo Adeolu, proud holder of a degree in plant biology from the University of Lagos, spent months tramping these same streets in search of work. He endured rejection after rejection, then tried selling used phones with a friend, but competition in this saturated market beat them back.

One afternoon, scrolling through social media, a post caught his eye. “Earn-As-You-Waste,” it read, advertising an information session for Pakam, a company promoting recycling as a source of income. At the session, Pakam’s staff explained how participants could earn money by collecting recyclable waste from the company’s clients. Registered collectors, they said, would be trained to sort and weigh the waste, record this shabby bounty digitally, and transport the recovered materials to aggregation points.

The state of Lagos state generates nearly 5.5 million metric tons of solid waste every year, according to the state waste management authority — or roughly 15,000 metric tons a day. A 2024 World Bank study estimated that nearly 40% of this rubbish is recyclable — yet no more than 12% is retrieved from the waste stream. The same report calculated that more than 60% of the state’s solid waste is “unmanaged” — neither recycled nor collected for dumping in one of three official landfills that are fast reaching capacity

The initiative that caught Adeolu’s eye, Earn-As-You-Waste is one of several private efforts aiming to increase collection of recyclables in Lagos. The project’s operator, Pakam Technology Limited, says 18,000 people have made use of its mobile app to schedule collection of plastics, aluminum cans, cardboard and other recyclables by Pakam’s collectors.

Collecting and transporting recyclables in the crowded streets of areas like Ojuelegba is challenging. Pushing wheelbarrows or dragging sacks of crushed cans and plastic bottles through narrow lanes and congested markets, Adeolu and his fellow collectors draw impatient honks from passing motorists and good-natured abuse from pedestrians stepping around them. From Ojuelegba, the waste is taken to Pakam’s aggregation hub in Maryland, 10 kilometers (6 miles) north, for further sorting before being sold to recycling companies.

“The idea is to make recycling accessible and motivate communities to adopt better waste disposal habits,” Pakam’s executive director, Olumide Ajayi, tells Mongabay. He says the initiative has recovered more than 170,000 metric tons of recyclable waste since it launched in 2021.

Pakam’s army of waste pickers includes both collectors, who respond to requests sent in via the app, and others who gather recyclables independently from streets and neighborhoods.

“Our Earn-As-You-Waste program creates real earnings opportunities for Lagos youths whilst coaching them realistic skills in waste sorting, recycling, and logistics,” Ajayi tells Mongabay. “By participating in the program, young people gain experience that not only helps them earn a living today but also improves their employability for future jobs in the environmental and recycling sectors.”

But the work is poorly paid. According to the company, Pakam’s collectors earn around 35,000 naira per week, or about $30, which is less than half what other kinds of manual labor in Lagos would typically pay. But extremely high rates of youth unemployment mean many young people are still willing to take up the opportunity.

Adeolu says his earnings fluctuate depending on the volume and type of recyclables he collects each week. He estimates his average pay at around $35 per week, or double that on a good week. More of this article (Mongabay) - link - more like this (Nigeria) - link - more like this (recycling) - link - more like this (Lagos) - link

(GUF) THE DIRTY SECRET OF PROPORTIONAL SCORING

Every few years, like others, the waste industry goes through the same ritual. A tender lands, the weightings look sensible, the questions look robust; everyone nods earnestly and talks about quality partnerships.

And then someone wins it by being spectacularly cheap. Not efficient, not innovative and definitely not demonstrably better; just cheaper and everyone pretends to be surprised. On paper, most public-sector waste tenders follow a familiar structure:-

• Quality: 60%
• Price: 40%

It looks balanced; it feels responsible and seems to tick all the governance boxes. The theory is sound: reward good service while protecting public money. The reality however can be gamed and often is because proportional price scoring has a mathematical gravity that many procurement teams quietly underestimate.

Under proportional scoring, the lowest price almost always anchors the entire competition. Once that anchor is dropped, everyone else is fighting uphill regardless of how strong their quality submission is. What this creates in practice is a very predictable strategy; submit a compliant (not exceptional) quality response then go aggressively low on price and let the scoring model do the heavy lifting. If the quality questions are not sufficiently discriminating and being honest, many aren’t, the pricing lever becomes disproportionately powerful.

At that point, the tender stops being a question of who will deliver the best service and quietly becomes one of who is most willing to take the commercial risk and those are not the same question.

Inside our industry, most experienced operators recognise the pattern. Broadly speaking, bidders tend to fall into two camps: -

1. The Delivery-Led Bidder

• Prices based on known disposal costs
• Builds in realistic crew assumptions
• Allows for reporting, compliance and account management
• Expects to actually deliver what was written in the quality submission

2. The Margin-Chasing Bidder

• Prices to win first
• Works out the delivery model later
• Relies on operational stretch, variation income, or future renegotiation
• Knows the maths of proportional scoring inside out

When a contract is effectively bought, the consequences rarely appear on day one. The mobilisation looks fine; the launch meeting is full of enthusiasm and everyone posts something optimistic on LinkedIn.

The stress shows up later; typically in the form of service inconsistency, reporting gaps, account management drift, operational shortcuts or the inevitable quiet reappearance of “cost pressures” 12 months in and none of this is inevitable.

Experienced clients know this but many just don’t model for it properly at tender stage. To be clear, this isn’t about blaming procurement teams. Most are working within rigid frameworks and doing their best to balance cost and compliance but there is a recurring blind spot in waste tenders. The scoring model often assumes all compliant bids are operationally equal when they’re definitely not. In waste services, particularly multi-stream, compliance-heavy environments; small pricing gaps can reflect very different delivery assumptions:-

• Crew structure
• Supervision levels
• Data and reporting investment
• Contingency capacity
• Compliance overhead

If the quality questions don’t flush those differences out properly, price becomes a dangerously blunt instrument. More like this (waste) - link - more like this (procurement) - link

(GRE) ALLBIRDS - COW FREE TYRE RICH SHOES

Footwear giant Allbirds has launched what it claims is an “industry-first” collection of shoes made from Modern Meadow’s cow-free leather alternative.

Allbirds may be closing all its US stores, but the global footwear company continues to bet on sustainability.

Its new Terralux collection is built on Innovera, a material made by New Jersey startup Modern Meadow, which turns plant-based proteins, biopolymers, and post-consumer recycled nylon from end-of-life tyres into animal-free leather.

The three-strong Terralux collection includes two of Allbirds’s newest and best-selling styles, Cruiser and Varsity, as well as the Runner NZ, an evolution of the Wool Runner silhouette that launched the brand over a decade ago.

“Terralux marks an important evolution for Allbirds,” said Jason Israel, VP of design at Allbirds. “Innovera allowed us to achieve the look and feel of leather in a bio-based material, opening the door to more elevated, versatile footwear – while still delivering on our comfort and sustainability promise.” More of this article (green queen) - link - More like this (tyres) - link - more like this (shoes) - link

(GUF) FIVE GO RECYCLING

For the first time in decades, the UK has something approaching a coherent legislative roadmap for waste and recycling. Instead of isolated policies and good intentions, we now have five major pieces of legislation that taken together form a joined up path toward a circular economy.

The five are:

• Simpler Recycling
• Packaging Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR)
• Digital Waste Tracking (DWT)
• Deposit Return Scheme (DRS)
• Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for incineration

If you look at them as a system they make a lot of sense. In simple terms they form a logical chain - standardise collections, fund the system, track the waste, capture the most valuable materials then price the carbon.

From a policy perspective, it’s the most structured approach the UK has taken in years but while the direction is coherent, the timelines are not. Each of these measures relies on very different parts of our industry, different behaviours and different levels of infrastructure. The result is that we don’t really have five reforms moving at once; we have five reforms moving at five different speeds and that matters.

1. Simpler Recycling – The Foundation That Unites An Industry 

Out of the five, Simpler Recycling is the most grounded in operational reality.

It sets out a defined list of recyclable materials, a national framework for what must be collected. Greater consistency across local authorities and commercial premises should become the norm. This isn’t a theoretical or technological leap, it’s a procurement and infrastructure adjustment using systems that already exist. Councils already collect recyclables; businesses already separate waste and contractors already operate multi-stream collections.

Simpler Recycling is essentially about saying 'here’s the list, everyone works to it'. There will be friction, there always is but this is the one reform that relies least on new technology, new behaviours or brand-new national infrastructure; it's the baseline reform, the one that sets the tone.

My verdict: It's in, it's working.

2. pEPR – The Funding Engine That Will Drive Change

If Simpler Recycling is the foundation, pEPR is the engine. For years, the UK’s recycling system has relied heavily on council budgets and local taxpayers. pEPR flips that logic. It shifts the cost of managing packaging waste onto the producers who place it on the market. In doing so, it introduces something the system has never really had: a direct financial link between packaging design and disposal cost.

Under pEPR, easy-to-recycle packaging will be cheaper whilst complex or composite materials will cost more and ultimately councils will receive funding from producers. Finally, the overall system will be financially reinforced.

There will be arguments about fee levels. There always are when money changes hands but the basic mechanism is sound and widely used across Europe. In simple terms pEPR is too logical to fail. It has political backing, international precedent and a clear economic rationale.

My Verdict: It's in and it will reshape packaging design over time and everything will come in a can.

3. Digital Waste Tracking – Where Policy Meets Reality

On paper, Digital Waste Tracking is one of the most elegant reforms in the entire package. The vision is simple; no more paper transfer notes, real time tracking of waste from producer to final destination, full transparency across the supply chain, better enforcement and reduced illegal activity.

Technically, it’s all achievable, the software exists, the systems exist and the data flows are well understood but there’s a difference between what is technically possible and what is operationally realistic. The UK waste industry isn’t made up of a few large players. It’s made up of tens of thousands of carriers, brokers and operators. Many are small firms, some are still paper-based, some rely on spreadsheets and a few still rely on memory and a bic biro.

Expecting around 60,000 operators to input accurate data consistently in real time and do it to a national standard is not a technology challenge it’s a behavioural and compliance challenge.

Phases 1 and 2 will happen. Basic digital records will come in and paper will gradually disappear but the final vision of fully automated, real-time national tracking will take longer than the timelines suggest. Not because it’s wrong, because it’s ambitious.

My Verdict: Phase 3 will never happen - only South Korea has ever achieved it.

• The direction is correct.
• The timeline is optimistic.
• Phase three will take years to stabilise and then be dropped.

4. Deposit Return Scheme – The National Logistics Experiment

DRS is often talked about as a policy. In reality, it’s not a policy at all. It’s a national logistics operation disguised as a recycling scheme. To work properly, it needs:

• Reverse vending machines across the country.
• Regional collection networks.
• Counting and sorting centres.
• Fraud prevention systems.
• New vehicle fleets.
• New depots.
• New staff.

All of that has to work from day one. The UK is likely to be divided into multiple regions. Each region will need its own infrastructure, vehicles and operating teams. In reality, what will probably happen is one or two regions will launch smoothly, but others will struggle with infrastructure or staffing. Performance will be uneven at first.

That doesn’t mean DRS will fail, it just means it will mature over time, not overnight. A more realistic timeline would look like:

• Year 1: Mixed performance across regions.
• Years 2–3: Systems stabilise and improve.
• Year 4 onwards: Mature national operation.

DRS will work. But it will take time to find its feet.

My Verdict: It will succeed. It just won’t be uniform from day one - the London region will have serious collection issues forever.

5. ETS for Incineration – The Political Wild Card

Including waste incineration in the Emissions Trading Scheme is, from an economic perspective, entirely logical. It prices the carbon cost of burning waste and encourages recycling over incineration and aligns waste with other carbon-intensive sectors. Within the UK, this is achievable.

The systems already exist, the complication is international alignment. Carbon pricing works best when neighbouring markets have similar rules. Cross-border distortions are minimised. If the UK introduces ETS on incineration and parts of the EU do not, waste could be exported. Price differences could distort markets. Carbon tourism' becomes a real possibility.

The EU is still debating whether to include incineration in its own ETS framework and with geopolitical tensions, energy policy and economic pressures dominating the agenda, waste incineration is unlikely to be at the top of the priority list.

My Verdict: The principle is sound; the UK can implement it but real alignment with the EU may take longer than expected.

One Direction, Five Different Clocks. All five policies are pointing in the same direction:

• More recycling.
• Better product design.
• Transparent waste flows.
• Carbon accountability.

But they are not moving at the same speed. Simpler Recycling is operational and achievable - pEPR is financially logical and politically supported - DWT is technically sound but behaviourally complex - DRS is infrastructure-heavy and will mature over time - ETS is economically correct but politically dependent.

The risk isn’t that these reforms will fail. The real risk is expecting them all to land at once, in perfect synchronisation as if they were parts of the same machine installed on the same day when they’re not. They’re more like five trains leaving the same station, each on a different track with different distances to travel and different speeds. They’re all heading in the right direction. They just won’t arrive at the destination at the same time and anyone working in the real world of bins, vehicles, depots, drivers, procurement teams and overstretched waste Account Managers like myself knows one simple truth - in waste management, direction matters more than deadlines.

If we keep the direction right, the system will get there. It just won’t happen on the timetable in the press release. More like this (legislation) - link - more like this (waste) - link 

(GUF) WHY DO DEPOSIT RETURN SCHEMES FAIL

Deposit Return Schemes are usually presented as simple, common-sense environmental policies. Put a deposit on a bottle or can, people return it, recycling improved, job done; and in fairness, in some countries that’s exactly what happens - return rates climb, litter falls, hoorah.

When a scheme fails, stalls or collapses before it even starts, the obvious question is why and the answer, more often than not, has nothing to do with recycling but has everything to do with politics, logistics and money.

On paper, DRS looks like a waste policy but it’s something very different. It’s a national cash-handling system supporting a retail logistics network employing a data-tracking operation operating around a fraud-sensitive financial model and a recycling system on top of all that.

Once deposits are attached to containers, you’re no longer just moving waste, you’re moving money in the shape of cans and bottles and that changes everything.

Failures

The most obvious example is Scotland. Scotland attempted to launch its own DRS ahead of the rest of the UK. The scheme included glass, had different rules and was set on a different timeline. The result was regulatory conflict with the UK internal market causing delays and industry resistance leading to the eventual collapse before launch with over £100 million in sunk costs.

The environmental idea was sound but the political framework wasn’t aligned. A DRS cannot work properly in a fragmented market because containers can and do cross borders in the form of supply and retail chains. So, if the scheme doesn’t, problems start immediately.

A single DRS region may involve:

• Millions of containers per day
• Thousands of retail return points
• Dozens of vehicles
• Hundreds of staff
• Multiple depots
• Constant collections

And all of it must work every day from day one with absolute financial accuracy

In several countries, early problems have included reverse vending machines full or broken, retailers overwhelmed, poor rural access and site closures after launch. The schemes didn’t fail because people refused to return containers, they struggled because the logistics weren’t ready for the volume.

In some regions of Australia, the deposit has sat at 10 cents for years, the result being that return rates stuck around 60–65% and billions of containers still going to landfill. When the deposit becomes trivial, behaviour doesn’t change; the scheme exists but it underperforms. A deposit system only works if the deposit actually matters.

Many schemes assume that retailers will simply absorb the operational burden but in reality storage space is limited, staff time is limited and hygiene matters; having loads of empty bottles and cans hanging around is simply not permissible.

In some areas, small return sites have closed after launch because volumes were too high which disrupted the business and systems relied too heavily on manual returns. Retailers are not recycling centres and if the system isn’t designed around that fact, friction builds quickly.

Fraud

As soon as a deposit is attached to a container, it becomes a financial instrument and financial instruments attract creative thinking.

Examples seen in various schemes include:

• Cross-border container smuggling
• Barcode cloning
• Bulk industrial returns
• People retrieving containers from bins to claim deposits

One hypothetical scenario illustrates the risk:

• A MRF extracts cans and bottles from mixed recycling.
• Those containers are sold on.
• They are fed into return machines.
• Deposits are claimed.

If unchecked, that becomes a cash-generation loop - scrap value plus the deposit on material that never came through a consumer return point.

Modern schemes rely on:

• Barcode validation
• Return-point monitoring
• Sales-versus-returns checks
• Audits and anomaly detection

The reality is this that the system doesn’t physically stop the first fraudulent return. It relies on data, enforcement and financial controls which means DRS is as much about fraud prevention as it is about recycling.

DRS is expensive to build. For a single region, a realistic start-up might involve:

• 40 - 80 collection vehicles
• 10 - 25 bulk trailers
• Multiple depots
• Hundreds of staff
• IT integration
• Financial systems

Startup costs per region could easily reach £25 - 40 million before the first container is collected.

When those costs hit producers, retailers and hospitality resistance grows and, in several countries, that resistance has delayed schemes often leading to them being watered down or stopped entirely

Across different countries, the same themes keep appearing.

DRS fails when:

• Politics are fragmented
• Logistics are underestimated
• Deposits are too low
• Retailers are overloaded
• Fraud controls are weak
• Costs shock the system

DRS succeeds when the scheme is nationally aligned and deposits are meaningful, logistics are properly funded and fraud controls are strong and that’s why countries like Germany, Norway and Finland consistently achieve return rates above 90%.

The UK scheme will almost certainly work in the long run. Most do, but its success won’t depend on slogans, targets or policy documents.

It will depend on:

• Depots
• Drivers
• Vehicles
• Retail integration
• Fraud control
• And financial discipline

Who’s going to bid?

It’s no secret that two of the UK’s national operators will undoubtedly bid for the collection of DRS in scope containers. I’ll throw in another three and see whether I was right or wrong when they’re announced: -

• Biffa
• Veolia
• Suez
• FCC
• Urbaser

More like this (Biffa) – link – more like this (DRS) - link

ALLAN KEY

I was very sad to hear of the passing of Allan Key over the weekend who will be remembered fondly by those who worked with him.

He leaves behind a gap that won’t easily be filled. My thoughts are with his family, friends and all who had the privilege of knowing him.

Rest well, Allan.