Rising Tide Africa has committed up to ₦1.4 billion ($1 million) to Ororo Waste Management Limited to expand used cooking oil collection across Nigeria and create more income opportunities for people working in the waste collection network.
The investment will help Ororo Waste strengthen its collection infrastructure and provide the working capital needed to buy used cooking oil from collectors. It will also support the operation of collection hubs as the Lagos-based company expands its activities across the country.
Ororo Waste received the first allocation on September 16. Additional funding may be made available through December 16.
The investment could help address a major gap in Nigeria’s waste management system. The country consumes an estimated 1 million tonnes of vegetable oil and produces about 1.4 million metric tonnes of palm oil each year. Yet, there is limited formal infrastructure for collecting and recovering used cooking oil after it has been discarded.
Investment to expand collection and create income
Founded in 2021, Ororo Waste has built a business around collecting and exporting used cooking oil from households, markets, restaurants and other institutional generators.
The company is certified under the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) system as a collector and exporter of used cooking oil. Its collection platform uses Global Positioning System (GPS) and quick response (QR) codes to track oil from collectors through to export containers.
The new funding will support Ororo’s plan to expand beyond its three existing collection hubs in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. The company aims to establish more than 40 hubs across Nigeria over the next five years.
Ayo Banjo, co-chief executive officer of Ororo Waste, said the funding will support the basic infrastructure required to build a reliable collection network.
“Refiners in Europe don’t buy good intentions, they buy documented, ISCC-certified tonnes,” Banjo said. “Rising Tide’s capital helps fund the unglamorous but necessary part, drums, trucks, hub storage, and the working-capital float that lets us pay a market woman in Alausa the same day she sells to us.”
The company believes used cooking oil can move from being treated as waste to becoming a valuable commodity for global biofuel markets. At the same time, the collection model could provide new income opportunities for people already involved in informal waste collection.
Under its preliminary five-year targets, Ororo wants to increase its formally paid collector network from about 5,000 people today to more than 200,000 by 2031. It also plans to increase certified used cooking oil collection from the few thousand metric tonnes it has exported so far to more than 150,000 tonnes annually by 2031.
Yemi Keri, co-founder of Rising Tide Africa, said the investment is intended to strengthen the infrastructure behind the people already doing much of the collection work.
“Market women and waste pickers already do most of the collecting. Few have ever been paid fairly for that work, and even fewer at scale,” Keri said. “Our capital helps fund the infrastructure that pays those women the same day, for a commodity that some of the world’s largest offtakers are already contracted to buy.”
Partnership will track social and environmental impact
The investment also creates a development-impact partnership between Ororo Waste and Rising Tide Africa. The two organisations will track how the expansion affects people participating in Ororo’s collection network.
The initiative builds on work launched by Ororo in Lagos in July with the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Shell Foundation and the Waste Pickers Association of Nigeria (WAPAN).
The organisations trained about 250 market women, waste pickers and young people at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The training focused on the safe collection, handling and storage of used cooking oil.
The programme formed part of a partnership between Ororo and the Lagos State government to expand household used cooking oil collection through LASEPA’s zonal offices.
Ororo also plans to measure the economic impact of its expansion. It expects to complete a baseline income survey of the first formally onboarded collector group from the July training by the end of 2026.
The results will be used to track income and employment outcomes among participating women, waste pickers and young people. The company will also monitor the gender composition of its workforce and leadership as part of its environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting.
For Ororo, the focus is on building a formal market around a waste product that is already generated in large quantities. Banjo said the company’s wider goal is to use that infrastructure to create sustainable income opportunities.
“We are very honoured to be in a position to deploy infrastructure that will offer dignified incomes to several hundred thousand women, at a minimum,” Banjo said.
