FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 11, 2025
Berkeley, CA — The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) is deeply disturbed by the U.S. government’s decision to incinerate $9.7 million worth of vital reproductive health supplies funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including contraceptives such as birth control pills, shots, implants, and IUDs. This action, ordered under the Trump administration and now moving forward, not only wastes critical resources but also undermines the fundamental human right to reproductive care. The government is set to spend more than $160,000 to burn these essential medical supplies at a facility in France.
This follows the recent incineration of 500 tons of taxpayer-funded emergency food aid, intended to feed starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In both cases, the choice to burn life-saving aid represents a profound waste that deepens human suffering, denies dignity, and withholds care from those who need it most.
While GAIA’s core mission is to end waste incineration, our vision of environmental justice recognizes that all forms of injustice are interconnected. From our work around the world, we know that incineration is never a neutral act. It is a toxic, unjust, and shortsighted method of disposal that not only harms public health but also accelerates climate change and reinforces systems of oppression. Burning life-saving aid is a political decision.
We stand in solidarity with reproductive justice advocates, hunger relief organizations, and global health movements calling for an immediate halt to burning these needed resources in planned incinerations, and urgent delivery of these supplies to the communities that need them most. True justice requires that we see and fight all injustices together, because our struggles are bound, and so is our liberation.
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GAIA is a worldwide alliance of more than 1,000 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries. With our work, we aim to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. We envision a just, zero waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped.
Press contact:
María Guillén, Communications & Network Development Manager