Insights from GAIA’s International Day of Zero Waste Roundtables
On the International Day of Zero Waste, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) hosted two powerful virtual roundtables bringing together grassroots leaders, municipal officials, and global experts. Centered on the theme of “rebuilding bridges: from food waste to food sovereignty,” these sessions illuminated the critical, often overlooked connection between municipal solid waste, agricultural practices, and the climate crisis.
These bridges matter as they not only prevent organic waste from disposal through methods such as composting, animal feed, processing through black soldier fly, but they also return nutrients to the soil and provide inputs to food production systems. The connections between zero waste practices -which by nature are community-based and justice-centered- and agroecological systems -that build food sovereignty so communities define their own food systems, build systemic change putting people at the center of solutions.
Across both spaces, a singular, urgent message emerged: to address climate change and build resilient communities, we must stop disposing food waste in landfills and return it back to the soil through community-led practices.
The Core Problem: Misdirected Climate Finance
Organic waste is the third-largest source of global anthropogenic methane emissions, while agriculture is the second. Despite this, climate finance is drastically misallocated.
As GAIA’s Cecilia Allen, Director of the Global Zero Waste Cities program, highlighted during the second session:
“Actually 94% of methane finance globally is going to waste-to-energy incineration. Only 1% is going to organics management.”
Instead of investing in polluting technologies that only benefit a few, both webinars emphasized the need to redirect capital toward zero-waste and agroecological models that work with nature, rather than against it.
Key Learnings and Success Stories
The discussions proved that community-led, zero-waste solutions are not just theoretical—they are already thriving worldwide:
- Agroecology isn’t just a science; it’s a movement that connects soil health to community well-being. In Kerala, India, an urban agriculture program led by Thanal successfully linked household composting directly with local food production, mitigating emissions by reducing the need to transport food from outside the city.
- Zero Waste models are powerful drivers of social inclusion and local economic resilience. In Brazil, for example, 70% of workers in waste picker cooperatives are women, many in leadership positions, proving that environmental justice and gender equity go hand-in-hand.
- Myth-Busting Source Separation: The city of Accra, Ghana, successfully reduced its waste sector greenhouse gas emissions by roughly 300,000 tons in a 5 years period. Furthermore, their organic waste management programs proved that, with powerful campaigns, all communities respond positively to source separation.
- Local Innovation Saves Money: The municipality of Guimarães, Portugal, diverted nearly 19,500 tons of bio-waste from landfills in 3.5 years, saving the city half a million euros. They also pioneered the “Echobox” initiative, providing containers to restaurants to dramatically reduce food leftovers.
Voices from the Roundtables
The passion and expertise of our speakers framed the profound ethical and practical dimensions of this work:
- “There is no agricultural production if there are no soils that are well-nourished that have a significant amount of organic matter… The waste of food is an offense to our souls, to human ethics, because many, many people… are going to go to bed sometimes without having the relevant or the necessary food.” — Javier Souza, Pesticide Action Network Latin America
- “…this type of synergy between those movements is a way of rethinking and rebuilding the relations that we have with food and the organic waste by reducing food waste and recycling the organics…” — Lais Ferreira Santos, Instituto Pólis, Brazil
- “We have the solutions, but the question is how do we scale them up.” — Amma Asiedu, GAIA Africa
- “As a scholar of sustainability science more broadly, I would say agroecological systems promote resilience because you have a more diversified array of products which are going to be produced from them.” — Saleem Ali, UN ZW Advisory Board
- “Local projects demonstrate what is possible in practice… They really demonstrate that interconnectedness between the food, the environment, energy, … linking it to the economic systems and sort of plowing it back into the communities” — Cecilia Andersson, UN Habitat
Main Conclusions and Next Steps
To successfully scale these systems globally, the panelists from both sessions identified clear, strategic steps:
- Mandate Source Separation: Treating waste as a resource is impossible without source separation. Municipalities must make this a foundational public policy.
- Redirect Funds: Governments must shift financial investments away from incineration and heavily subsidize zero waste solutions, community composting, and fair-wage agricultural labor.
- Support the Frontlines: Waste pickers, grassroots groups, and women’s cooperatives must be formally integrated into city waste plans, guaranteeing them job security, health insurance, and a voice in policy creation.
- Connecting organic waste with agroecology and implementing projects through an interconnected lens is a key approach that not only reduces GHG emissions but also creates jobs, strengthens community and soil health, and enhances urban well-being.
By building bridges between local governments, waste pickers, and the agricultural sector, we can shift away from a culture of disposal and move firmly toward food sovereignty.
Check the webinar recording here:
👉Ama Acheampomaa Asiedu, GAIA Africa
👉Jayakumar C, Thanal
👉Francisco Ferreira, Municipality of Guimarães
👉Cecilia Andersson, UN-Habitat
👉Oliver Oliveros, Agroecology Coalition
Roundtable Session 2➡️Cecilia Allen, GAIA
➡️Javier Souza, Pesticide Action Network International Latin America
➡️Lais Ferreira, Instituto Polis
➡️Saleem Ali, UN International Resource Panel Member
➡️Victor Kotey, Waste Management Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly