Nigeria's E-Waste Scavengers Get Gloves, Pay and a Payslip

Hinckley Recycling runs a licensed e-waste plant at Gbogije-Ibeju near Lagos, with collection centres in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, and is an approved EPRON e-waste collector and recycler. It estimates Nigeria has over 100,000 informal collectors handling lead, mercury and cadmium without protection, around 22,900 of them women, and it formalises them through training, protective equipment and fair pay. The company employs 30 women today, plans 20 formal collection points nationwide and targets 150 jobs for women by 2030. It also tests, reconditions and recycles lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries, with an impact investor putting US$1.5 million behind dedicated battery recycling facilities in Nigeria.