Only a tiny fraction of waste is recycled in Nigeria, a country of some 210 million consumers.
Plastic, metal and glass that in advanced economies are routinely picked up and processed are mostly tossed out.
Each year, Nigeria disgorges 200,000 tons of plastic into the Atlantic, the UN Industrial Development Organization reported last year.
In Lagos alone, a city of more than 20 million people, less than 10 percent total recyclables are currently collected, Ibrahim Adejuwon Odumboni, managing director of the Lagos State Management Agency told AFP.
By comparison, in the UK, more than 41 percent of waste picked up by local authorities was recycled last year, according to British statistics.
For Odumboni, recycling initiatives are to be commended but more should be done by the companies making aluminum beverage cans and other products.
"We need the manufacturers to invest in the collection system. In many parts of the world, a portion of what producers sell is going into the recovery of products. We currently don't have that in Nigeria," he said.
If companies selling aluminum products "are not held responsible (for collecting waste) then it doesn't make any sense -- we're just going round and round in circle."
He blames poor legislation but says an improved law on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is currently being discussed in the state house of assembly.
EPR is an environmental policy in place in many countries that gives producers incentives to take responsibility for their products after they are used.
Another challenge for recyclers is carbon emissions from the energy they use to crush, shred or melt old materials.
One example of Nigeria's push to whittle down its rubbish Himalayas is Romco Metals, which started recycling aluminum at its factory outside Lagos in 2015, drawn by global demand for the light, strong, flexible metal.
Aluminum is the world's second most-used metal after steel and used widely in construction, medicine and car-making.
"Electric vehicles require more durable lighter material such as aluminum, and that's where our materials end up," said the company's youthful founder, 32-year-old Raymond Onovwigun.
A British-registered company, Romco melts down and recycles around 1,500 tons of discarded aluminum per month, out of a capacity of 3,000 tons.
It says it has created 450 direct jobs -- 5,000 in total, in this labor-intensive sector -- and plans to double that number within a year.
"Before... there was no work," community leader Bankole Gbenga known as Chief Abore told AFP during a recent visit to the Lagos facility.
Chief Abore says more than a hundred young people from his community alone now work for Romco in some capacity.
"Some are doing carpentry, some are welders... some of the youth are doing security," said the 40-year-old.
Among those who have most benefited from Romco's business are material suppliers like Mohammed Ashiru Madugu, who delivers several truckloads of metal scrap each week.
Madugu has a warehouse in northwestern Katsina, where suppliers from across the state and even neighboring states bring him discarded metal.
He loads the goods onto trucks and sends them -- with escorts because of frequent ambushes by criminal gangs on the road -- all the way to Lagos, more than a thousand kilometers away.
For one truck, he can get paid up to 26 million naira (about $60,000 dollars) although the price fluctuates.