THE NATIONAL Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) says it will begin enforcement of the Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) guidelines and regulations to combat environmental pollution in the country.
The Director-General of the agency, Dr Innocent Bariate-Barikor, disclosed this on Tuesday in Kano, during a regulatory dialogue on the implementation of National Environmental (Battery Control) Regulations, 2024.
The EPR mandates producers, importers, and brand owners to be legally responsible for the entire lifecycle of their products, particularly plastic packaging.
Under the EPR framework, companies will be required to fund and participate in Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs), which will manage waste collection, recycling, and consumer awareness.
Bariate-Barikor described the EPR as a “global best practice that promotes shared responsibility” among government, industries and consumers in advancing the circular economy.
While assuring stakeholders that NESREA was not out to stifle businesses, the D-G said that the agency would not allow unsustainable exploitation of the environment.
He called for collective efforts from the stakeholders to address the challenges.
“It is not the intention of NESREA to thwart businesses or use the regulation to stifle businesses, but to ensure that businesses and the environment are working together.
“This is because we are all mutual beneficiaries of the exploits of the environment.
“If there is any arm of the society that attempts to over exploit it in an unsustainable manner, all of us will pay for it and every person becomes a victim of the consequences that come out of it,” he said.
Bariate-Barikor said that the dialogue was organised to sensitise stakeholders on the existence of the EPR and upcoming enforcement.
He noted the importance of stakeholders’ participation in the EPR framework before enforcement begins “so that nobody will say ‘I didn’t see it or I didn’t know about it”.
The D-G further said that dialogue, organised in collaboration with the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), was also to look at Nigeria’s battery control regulations.
He explained that the National Environmental (Battery Control) Regulations, 2024, aim to prevent and minimise pollution from batteries across their entire lifecycle.
This, according to him, means enforcing extended producer responsibility and the polluter-pays principle in the country.
He said that the dialogue was to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders at the federal, state and local government levels in implementing the battery control regulations.
According to him, effective implementation requires coordinated action.
“Every institution or stakeholder represented here has a distinct responsibility in ensuring that used batteries are collected, transported, stored and recycled in accordance with the provisions of the regulations.
“A major provision of the regulation is the institutionalisation of EPR.
“This makes it mandatory for manufacturers and importers of batteries to subscribe to the EPR and assume responsibility for the environmental parts of their products throughout their lifetime.
“This is a global movement towards a global solution to the challenge of batteries and it’s not just in the battery sector, it’s also in other sectors,” he said.
He said that to ensure implementation of EPR, Nigeria has registered the Alliance for Responsible Battery Recycling (ARBR), as a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO) from the battery sector in Nigeria.
He said that NESREA expects producers, importers, collectors, aggregators and recyclers to work closely with ARBR in fulfilling their obligations under the regulations.
Earlier, the ARBR Executive Secretary, Mrs Miranda Amachree said that the registered members of the waste battery value chain were still struggling to comply with the provisions of the regulations.
Amachree, who was represented by her Executive Assistant, Scholar Ozigbe, added that the majority of the stakeholders were yet to register.
She appealed for the support of the Nigeria Customs Service and Standard Organization of Nigeria to provide a list of importers and local manufacturers.
This, she said, would address the problem of free riders and for NESREA to continue the partnership by giving conditional permits to approved renewable energy operators to incorporate the take back battery programme.
In her remarks, the Clean Energy Training and Management Advisor, GIZ, Idiongoabasi Jackson, said the Nigerian Energy Support Programme remains firmly committed to providing sustained technical and strategic support to NESREA and other key stakeholders.
“This will help in building a robust, inclusive framework that protects the environment,” Jackson said. (NAN)
