Value reclamation from informal municipal solid waste management: green neoliberalism and inclusive development in Lagos, Nigeria

Lagos is undoubtedly the cultural capital and economic hub of the West African sub-region. The challenge of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in the megacity has remained intractable due partly to the increasing rate of population growth. While solid waste policy reforms, investments, and mana...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLocal environment Vol. 24; no. 10; pp. 949 - 967
Main Authors Mbah, Peter Oluchukwu, Ezeibe, Christian Chukwuebuka, Ezirim, Gerald Ekenedirichukwu, Onyishi, Chinedu Josephine, Nzeadibe, Thaddeus Chidi
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 03.10.2019
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Black markets
Cultural capital
Development strategies
Economic development
Economics
Green neoliberalism
inclusive development
Informal economy
Investments
Megacities
Municipal solid waste
municipal solid waste management
Municipal waste management
Neoliberalism
Population growth
Population policy
Reclamation
Recyclable materials
Recycling
Reforms
Regional development
Solid waste management
Solid wastes
Sustainable development
value reclamation
Waste management
Waste management industry
Nigeria
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Summary:Lagos is undoubtedly the cultural capital and economic hub of the West African sub-region. The challenge of municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in the megacity has remained intractable due partly to the increasing rate of population growth. While solid waste policy reforms, investments, and management practices in Lagos are in the upswing in the formal economy, the role of the informal economy in engendering sub-regional material linkages and livelihoods remain unexplored. Adopting a multi-stakeholder approach and data from interviews, this study critically examines how value reclamation from informal MSWM advances green neoliberalism and inclusive development. It shows that while informal transboundary trade of recyclable materials in the West African sub-region have previously been left out of analyses of MSWM in Lagos, the informal economy of waste and new investments in MSWM have neoliberal underpinnings beyond the megacity scale. The paper concludes that integrating the informal economy in framing MSWM policy in the megacity offers scope for evolving an inclusive development strategy while also enabling sustainable MSWM in the post-2015 era.
ISSN:1354-9839
1469-6711
DOI:10.1080/13549839.2019.1663801