Nothing Is Ever Thrown Away
Nothing Is Ever Thrown Away is a documentary photographic project examining the movement of waste from urban drainage systems to informal recycling networks in the eastern part of Nigeria. The work focuses on men who extract plastic waste from sewage channels and transport it toward collection points, revealing how discarded materials remain active within the city's economy.
Rather than framing waste as environmental residue, the project approaches it as a circulating material shaped by human labour. Through repeated acts of retrieval, sorting, and carrying, objects commonly labelled as refuse are reintroduced into systems of value, reuse, and survival.
The images foreground physical effort, improvised tools, and transitional spaces — drainage paths, roadside edges, and temporary holding sites — where waste changes status. These locations function as sites of extraction and redistribution, driven not by formal infrastructure but by necessity, skill, and local knowledge.
By documenting these processes, the project highlights the often-invisible labour that sustains urban material flows in Nigeria. Nothing Is Ever Thrown Away positions waste as a social and economic actor, revealing how cities rely on informal practices to manage excess, scarcity, and continuity.
