Rising Tide Africa, a women-led pan-African angel investment network, has committed $1 million to expand Ororo Waste Management Limited's used cooking oil collection network. The investment will support market women, waste pickers, and youths in Nigeria. Ororo Waste, Lagos State's partner for institutional-scale used cooking oil collection and export, received the first tranche of the corporate note on September 16, 2026.
The investment comes two months after Ororo Waste, alongside the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA, Shell Foundation, and the Waste Pickers Association of Nigeria, WAPAN, trained about 250 market women, waste pickers, and youths. The training covered safe collection, handling, and storage of used cooking oil, quality assurance, and traceability. Participants were paid for every liter supplied.
Nigeria generates an estimated 840,000 metric tons of used cooking oil annually, with over 95 percent uncaptured. Experts warn that discarded oil worsens flooding and blockages, while unsafe reuse in food preparation has carcinogenic risks. Ororo Waste aims to capture this waste for export, with a focus on inclusive circular economy and employment generation.
Ororo Waste is ISCC-certified and has exported thousands of metric tons with zero quality rejections. The company tracks every transaction by GPS and QR code from collector to export container and pays collectors via mobile money the same day. This approach ensures transparency and fairness in the collection process.
The funding will drive Ororo's expansion from three hubs in Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt to over 40 hubs nationally in five years. As part of the partnership, both parties have agreed on indicative five-year impact targets, including growing the formally paid collector network to over 200,000 by 2031.
Rising Tide Africa's co-founder, Yemi Keri, described the investment as "gender-lens investing in practice." Ororo Waste's co-CEO, Ayo Banjo, emphasized the importance of funding for infrastructure, including drums, trucks, and hub storage, to pay market women the same day they sell to the company.
Ororo Waste expects to complete a baseline income survey of its first formally onboarded cohort by year-end and report annual income and employment outcomes alongside workforce gender composition. The company has adopted a governance and ESG framework aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals and Nigerian Code of Corporate Governance 2018.
Key points
- Rising Tide Africa invests $1m in Ororo Waste Management to expand used cooking oil collection network.
- The investment aims to support market women, waste pickers, and youths in Nigeria.
- Ororo Waste targets 40 hubs nationally in five years, with a focus on inclusive circular economy and employment generation.
