Temitope Okunnu

Temitope has created a comprehensive model for tackling household waste in Nigeria using a multi-level approach which encompasses women in communities, young people in schools, and media plus government partnerships to affect policy change and mindset shift for environmental change. She envisions a Nigeria where households, schools, and markets and all people are not passive consumers but active participants in a circular economy.

Temitope is leading a grassroots movement to tackle Nigeria’s household waste crisis through her innovative “Zero Household Waste” model. This holistic approach combines strategic pillars—education, empowerment, and collaboration—to transform waste into opportunity. By placing women and youth at the center, she fosters environmental consciousness, community resilience, and inclusive economic growth, while engaging media, government, and institutions to amplify the model’s reach and impact. 

Her strategy begins with equipping women—often the primary waste managers—with practical skills in recycling, upcycling, and composting. These women become community leaders, creating ripple effects through households, schools, and marketplaces. Temitope also targets youth through climate education embedded in school curricula, ensuring intergenerational engagement. Grassroots campaigns and media outreach further normalize sustainable behaviors, helping the movement grow organically and remain rooted in local realities. 
 
Temitope’s partnerships with government agencies like the Ministry of Education and Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) have enabled systemic integration of her model, including the establishment of seven permanent recycling hubs across Lagos. These hubs serve as training and income-generating centers for women and youth, linking informal and formal waste systems. Her collaboration with the Coca-Cola Foundation through the Tidy Nigeria Recycling Drive (TNRD) has scaled plastic recovery efforts, supported by digital tools like the Tidy Nigeria App, which gamifies participation and ensures transparency. 
 
At the core of her work is the creation of a self-sustaining ecosystem where women lead across the recycling value chain—from sorting and aggregation to resale and upcycling. Training is accessible, community-based, and reinforced through digital platforms like WhatsApp. By integrating infrastructure, education, technology, and social mobilization, Temitope offers a replicable model that turns environmental challenges into engines of empowerment, economic opportunity, and sustainable urban development. 

Nigeria generates over 32 million metric tons of solid household waste annually, making it one of the largest waste producers in Africa, according to a 2018 World Bank report. Alarmingly, only 20-30% of this waste is adequately collected and managed, while the remainder is either disposed of in unauthorized locations or burned. These practices contribute significantly to environmental pollution and associated health risks, including respiratory diseases and groundwater contamination.    
  
The waste management issue in Lagos State is particularly severe, with the city generating approximately 13,000 metric tons of household waste daily as of 2017. Despite efforts from the Lagos State Government and agencies like the Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA), only 40% of this waste is collected and properly managed, leaving the remaining 60% unaddressed. This results in significant environmental challenges, including air pollution and improper waste disposal, which have serious public health implications. In 2021, air pollution in Lagos led to the deaths of 22,500 children, according to the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA). The rapid population growth in Nigeria exacerbates the situation, with a large portion of household waste ending up in dumpsites, canals, drainages, and water bodies. This increases the risk of waterborne diseases, respiratory illnesses, and other health problems. Open dumping and burning of waste highlight the inefficiencies in the waste management infrastructure, underscoring the urgent need for sustainable, community-driven solutions.  

Human activities, particularly consumption habits, are significant contributors to the pervasive issue of indiscriminate waste handling and environmental degradation. Schoolchildren and young people are among the top contributors to plastic waste, particularly from products in plastic bottles and packaged snacks, such as biscuits and soft drinks, which are often discarded carelessly after consumption due to a lack of recycling system and awareness. This trend is exacerbated by the absence of waste management education in school curricula and media outlets, leaving young people unaware of the long-term environmental and public health consequences of their actions. Inadequate waste management practices not only increase environmental damage, but they also pose substantial health risks, disproportionately impacting women and children. Women, often responsible for managing households, generate large quantities of waste, much of which ends up in landfills and drainage systems, contributing to further environmental degradation. While the Lagos State Government, private sector organizations, and civil society groups have taken steps to address these issues, their efforts remain fragmented and insufficient, hindered by inefficiencies, funding constraints, and a lack of coordinated action among stakeholders.  
  
Unfortunately, existing approaches often fail to recognize the potential of communities as catalysts for change, neglecting to highlight the power of individuals in driving improvements in waste management practices. Temitope’s solution, is revolutionizing household waste management by building a movement of community women, students, educators, partners, and government officials. This collaborative effort seeks to address the issue from a holistic perspective, ensuring a comprehensive and sustainable approach to waste management and enhancing hygiene practices as well.  

Since 2016, Temitope has been transforming household waste management in Nigeria through her non-profit, FABE International Foundation, with the goal of building a sustainable and environmentally conscious society. Leading a team of eight staff, supported by over 350 volunteers and hundreds of partners, she addresses the waste crisis at its roots—fragmented infrastructure, low public awareness, and gendered economic inequality—by turning households and communities into active participants in waste solutions. Her strategy rests on four interconnected pillars: creating recycling infrastructure, leveraging industry partnerships, embedding digital innovation and, at the foundation of it all, catalyzing a grassroots movement.

Recycling Infrastructure

Temitope has established a community-driven approach that empowers women—primarily mothers—to lead household waste management. She has built an ecosystem where women influence household and community practices, contributing to the diversion of nearly 1,000,000 tons of plastic and household waste from coastal waterways and nurturing a generation of young environmental stewards. This impact is reinforced through three complementary programs—the Tidy Nigeria Recycling Drive (TNRD), the WasteWise Women Network, and the EcoSchoolsNG Program—creating an end-to-end pipeline for waste diversion across households, schools, markets, and communities. By integrating partnerships with government, industry, and local leaders, Temitope demonstrates that waste is not a burden but a resource to be reimagined, building inclusive and sustainable local economies.

In Lagos, she has deployed retrofitted 40-foot container hubs and a network of recycling banks across schools, markets, churches, and sports venues, bringing formal waste collection to neighborhoods previously unreached by municipal services. These initiatives have scaled to seven permanent community hubs in Victoria Garden City, Sangotedo, Okun-Ajah, Adekunle/Makoko, Idado, and Ikorodu, alongside a flagship hub at the Lagos State Secretariat in Alausa to promote sustainable practices among civil servants. Managed by trained community members—particularly women and youth—these hubs foster local ownership, connect informal and formal waste systems, and serve as centers for learning, entrepreneurship, and environmental action. Furthermore, she has assisted young recyclers in gaining access to schools to establish more recycling hubs.

By linking these hubs to municipal systems, Temitope has created a seamless interface between informal and formal waste streams, embedding opportunities for women throughout the system and ensuring responsible processing while driving community-led change. Over 50,000 women now participate in recycling through accessible drop-off points, and 350 women engage in intensive upcycling programs that convert waste into marketable products, generating income and fostering entrepreneurship.

Industry Collaboration

To drive scale, Temitope leverages industry collaboration through the Tidy Nigeria Recycling Drive (TNRD), embedding recycling habits at the household level and transforming waste management into a social movement. Launched in partnership with the Coca-Cola Foundation, the program begins by mapping local waste hotspots near waterways, markets, and highways and engaging community leaders, youth groups, and women’s associations to co-design solutions. Women are equipped and integrated into municipal and community systems, receiving starter kits—including jumbo bags, gloves, weighing scales, and masks—alongside ownership roles at community hubs and ongoing mentorship. Training and sensitization sessions are conducted in local languages such as Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa, while follow-up is facilitated through WhatsApp groups that provide real-time updates, reminders, and continuous learning. Other residents participate in dialogues, door-to-door sensitization, and clean-up campaigns, learning proper sorting and collection practices, while collected recyclables are weighed, tracked, and shared back with participants through visual tools, recognition programs, and incentives, fostering cleaner streets and new social norms around sustainable waste behavior.

Digital Innovation

Central to this effort is the TidyNigeria App, a real-time digital platform that gamifies participation, tracks collections, benchmarks household and school impact, and ensures transparency. The app streamlines logistics for pick-ups, drop-offs, and payments, while capturing data on waste type, quantities, and participant demographics, enabling agile decision-making and accountability. Complementing technology, women trained through FABE’s upcycling and Eco-Schools programs serve as peer influencers, leading sorting, aggregation, compacting, resale, and upcycling, while some become micro-entrepreneurs generating income through street-to-street collection and functional goods production.

Grassroots Movement

Temitope catalyzes the grassroots environmental action that drives the whole model through a structured three-stage approach: Learn → Lead → Mobilize. Workshops, often in collaboration with local government centers, provide hands-on training in recycling, upcycling, and sustainable practices, serving as entry points for lasting behavior change. In the Learn stage, participants gain practical knowledge. Women and youth learn to sort recyclables, organic waste, and non-recyclables, convert organic matter into nutrient-rich compost, and transform recyclables into marketable or upcycled products, becoming agents of change within households and communities.

In the Lead stage, trained participants apply their skills locally, organizing recycling drives, clean-up campaigns, managing community drop-off points, and operating recycling hubs. Economic opportunities are embedded in these activities: compost is sold to farmers or used in backyard gardens, while recyclables are sold or upcycled into goods. This system turns waste into resources, strengthens local economies, and reinforces sustainable behaviors, with women and youth emerging as visible role models. In her EcoSchools program, children and adolescents participate as co-custodians through school-based eco-gardens and Eco-clubs, gaining hands-on experience in waste management and sustainability.

The Mobilize stage expands impact as participants activate peers, households, and neighbors through workshops, door-to-door campaigns, and peer-to-peer mentoring, spreading knowledge and shaping new social norms. Strategic partnerships—particularly with the Lagos State Office of Climate Change and Circular Economy and LAWMA—extend reach, provide resources, and ensure credibility and sustainability for the recycling efforts of 50,000 women. Through the EcoSchoolsNG program, over 130,000 secondary school students engage in peer-to-peer learning, clean-ups, and awareness campaigns, creating ripple effects across households and communities. Through her collaboration with the Lagos State government, sustainability is no longer an add-on but embedded directly into secondary school curricula and extracurricular programs, ensuring environmental stewardship is institutionalized for future generations.

Meanwhile, she partners with media to extend this impact beyond classrooms and campuses, telling stories that inspire communities to embrace sustainable behaviors and reframing waste-to-wealth as a driver of local development. Together, these efforts turn individuals into environmental advocates and weave a community-led movement that sustains itself while driving lasting systemic change.

Temitope’s programs now span five states—Ogun, Cross River, Delta, Enugu, and Oyo—alongside the Federal Capital Territory—and her EcoSchoolsNG curriculum is currently under review by the Federal Ministry of Education for formal adoption nationally. Her policy engagement spans LAWMA, NESREA, LASEPA, and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, contributing to the Lagos State ban on single-use plastics, grassroots sensitization in schools, markets, and communities, and the establishment of a Recycling Hub at the Lagos State Secretariat.

Temitope positions women as central agents in waste management, nurturing youth as future environmental leaders while connecting education, policy, infrastructure, and community mobilization. Her programs provide training for artisans, entrepreneurs, and women, linking livelihoods with circular economy principles and strengthening municipal services through sustainable, community-driven businesses. Under her leadership, Lagos has emerged as a national leader in women-led private sector partnerships for waste management, with female entrepreneurs overseeing recycling operations, waste collection, and green enterprises. Working closely with local government areas, LAWMA, and the Lagos State Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, she has scaled composting and recycling programs across schools, markets, and households. More than ten local government areas now adopt her waste sorting-at-source model, including a pilot at Ikosi-Ketu Market integrating biogas production with municipal services—demonstrating how community innovation can align with public systems.

Her work is powered by a broad ecosystem of partners across government, the private sector, NGOs, and international agencies. Corporate partners such as C40 Cities, Prudential Zenith, Coronation Group, Pernod Ricard, Fan Milk, and Unilever support women-led enterprises, while local NGOs and international partners—including ACT Foundation, the Coca-Cola Foundation, Oando Foundation, Deloitte, UKAID, UNIDO, UNICEF, and diplomatic missions—provide funding, advocacy, and best practices. Together, these partnerships create an enabling environment for women to lead in waste management, turning recycling into a systemic, scalable solution for inclusion, environmental stewardship, and lasting change.

Temitope’s journey from a nature-filled childhood to becoming a powerful advocate for environmental sustainability. Growing up in a picturesque compound, she was surrounded by the beauty of trees, gardens, and fresh vegetables that she and her mother nurtured. Their home exemplified an eco-conscious lifestyle, supported by local waste disposal companies that employed customized trash collection carts. Her school environment mirrored this, a peaceful oasis with minimal environmental pollution, laying the foundation for her deep connection with the natural world.  
 
However, when Temitope’s parents separated, she relocated with her mother to a neighborhood starkly different from her childhood home. This new environment exposed her to the harsh realities of environmental neglect. She witnessed firsthand the rampant pollution, with people routinely burning waste outside on the streets or dumping it in nearby canals and drains. This visible disregard for the environment had a profound impact on Temitope. Aside from the discomfort of adapting to a new and polluted setting, she developed severe skin reactions and respiratory infections that lasted until she moved back to her original home following her parents' reconciliation. The allergic reactions disappeared soon after, and that was when the connection between poor waste management and personal well-being was indelibly imprinted on her.  
 
In her teenage years, driven by a growing awareness of environmental issues, Temitope began rallying young people in her neighborhood to take part in clean-up efforts and stop refuse burning. These early steps in community organizing laid the groundwork for her lifelong commitment to environmental activism. During her undergraduate years, this passion grew stronger, and Temitope turned her focus to advocacy for waste management on campus. Her efforts culminated in her winning the prestigious Lagos State Miss Environment Beauty Pageant, an achievement that provided her with both the platform and leverage to bring environmental issues to the forefront of university life.  
 
As Miss Environment, Temitope harnessed her influence to launch a bi-annual campaign promoting Lagoon Conservation and organized monthly campus-wide clean-up initiatives. She also secured funding to purchase and strategically place recycling bins across the university, creating a visible infrastructure for better waste management. Beyond her individual efforts,  
Temitope built a dedicated team of students and staff to ensure the sustainability of these initiatives. As a result, the University of Lagos now boasts one of the most functional recycling and green hubs in Nigeria, earning the distinction of being the country’s most environmentally friendly campus.  
 
Upon graduation, she passed up a lot of opportunities to work for big corporate and chose instead to move forward with her environmental sustainability and waste management efforts. This gave birth to her non-profit FABE (Foundation for A Better Environment) in 2016.