West African firms secure capital backing to scale recycling

From the newsletter

Two West African firms have received financial backing from investors to advance their recycling activities. In Nigeria, Hinckley has secured $1.5 million from Shell-backed impact investor All On to construct battery recycling facilities. In Ghana and Nigeria, Norwegian investment fund Norfund is investing an undisclosed amount in Mohinani Group to promote plastic recycling.

• Hinckley is a leading e-waste recycler in Nigeria. It will use the funding to establish the country’s first advanced lithium-ion battery recycling and reuse as well as used lead acid battery recycling facilities.

• Mohinani Group is an African multi-sector conglomerate with business interests in recycling. The company will use the Norfund loan to support the expansion of its pioneering recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) initiatives in Ghana and Nigeria.

More details

• All On’s $1.5 million investment in Nigeria’s Hinckley aligns with insights from the “Market Research on the Circular Economy of the Renewable Energy Sector in Nigeria”, a report sponsored by the company. The report highlighted the environmental and health risks posed by improper disposal of solar components such as lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries and emphasised the need for commercially driven recycling initiatives to support a circular economy.

•  “Hinckley’s model addresses both the environmental hazards of e-waste and the economic opportunity in recycling,” said Oluseye Bassir, Investment Manager at All On. He added, “This investment will help ensure that mass adoption of renewable energy systems will not create serious pollution problems caused by poor disposal of batteries and other e-waste in Nigeria. This will help make the sector more sustainable.”

• On his part, the CEO of Hinckley recycling Adrian Clews said the investment will help the company enhance its environmental care and livelihood enhancement by “shifting informal e-waste collection into organised systems and building recycling facilities that comply with global standards.” 

• Founded in 2017, Hinckley E-Waste Recycling Ltd is an award-winning Nigeria based recycler of electronic waste. The investment from All On comes two months after the company secured an undisclosed amount of funding from impact investors Goodwell Investments and Aletheia Capital to build the two recycling facilities, with a combined capacity to process up to 30,000 tonnes of electronic waste per year.

• The investments will support the recycler to address the growing e-waste crisis in Nigeria, which is considered the largest producer of electronic waste in West Africa and the third largest in Africa after South Africa and Egypt.

• Meanwhile, Mohinani Group will use a loan from Norfund to expand plastic recycling infrastructure at its two rPET facilities in Ghana and Nigeria, which have a combined capacity of 15,000 tonnes of food-grade recycled plastic. The recycled plastic will replace virgin plastic in bottles and packaging to meet rising global requirements for recycled content.

• “By supporting the company to build high-capacity recycling infrastructure, we aim to buttress and develop collection chains, help to create jobs and improve lives, reduce dependency on imported inputs and decrease the amount of unmanaged waste, “said Naana Winful Fynn, Norfund’s Regional Director for West Africa.

• Besides managing the rising plastic waste crisis in the two countries, the funding will support the creation of jobs. According to Ms Fynn, the project is expected to create around 500 direct jobs and up to 3,000 indirect jobs in collection, transport, and logistics.

• Established in 1966, Mohinani Group is a multi-generational family business with its origin and heritage in Africa. Besides Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, it also has business operations across various sectors including recycling in China, UAE and India.

Our take

• The investments align with the growing trend of capital flowing into Africa’s recycling sector, suggesting a shift from viewing recycling solely as waste management to recognising it as a strategic pathway for sustainable growth.

• Two funding rounds in quick succession highlight not only Hinckley’s readiness to scale, but also how fast investors are moving to plug Nigeria’s recycling gaps before the waste crisis deepens.

• With the growing focus on scaling up Africa’s recycling capacity, governments should align by creating clear policies and incentives that enable private investment to thrive.