Once faced with waste management challenges exacerbated by tourism, two communes in Hoi An, Vietnam — Cam Thanh and Cham Islands (Tan Hiep Commune) — have become the faces of Zero Waste through the collaboration of stakeholders from the government, community organizations, farmers’ associations, businesses, and tourism associations.
Plastic-Free Hoi An: Towards a Green Destination
Island communities face more challenges when confronted with the problems posed by single-use plastics. As a response to these challenges, GAIA Island communities face more challenges when confronted with the problems posed by single-use plastics. As a response to these challenges, GAIA Asia Pacific is launching this latest publication, Community Voices: Impacts of Single-Use Plastic Regulations on Philippine Coastal Communities. This highlights different experiences of waste management implementors from Siquijor, San Carlos, and Dumaguete City in implementing their single-use plastic regulations.
The global Plastics Treaty must focus on plastic reduction and reuse, instead of substituting a plastic single-use item for
a bio-based, biodegradable, or compostable one.
This report provides a critical look at current efforts to curb plastic pollution in India, and offers recommendations to drastically reduce and eventually eliminate plastic pollution. The implementation of the waste and brand audits and the publication of this report is supported by GAIA and the Plastic Solutions Fund.
Everyone knows what causes climate change: fossil fuels. What’s less known is that plastic is also a climate polluter, as it is made from fossil fuels, such as crude oil, coal, and natural gas. This research published by Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) makes this inextricable link visible, by examining greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from each stage of plastic’s lifecycle, from wellhead to refinery, incinerators, and in the oceans.
This report uses data from household waste assessments and brand audits (WABA)[1] conducted by Mother Earth Foundation (MEF) in six cities and seven municipalities[2] across the country in the past five years. GAIA extrapolated the data to calculate daily and yearly plastic usage throughout the country in order to provide new quantitative evidence about plastic pollution in the Philippines. (2019)
Zero Waste is a move away from this unsustainable linear industrial system into a circular system—a system where unnecessary extraction and consumption is minimized, where waste is reduced, and where products and materials are reused or recycled back into the
market.
In Zero Waste, the resources that we use can be safely and economically recycled, reused, and composted, or turned into biogas anaerobic digestion. Zero Waste also means avoiding the use of disposable products and redesigning products that are toxic-free and built to last. Zero Waste involves:
• Reducing consumption
• Reusing discards
• Product redesign
• Shift to alternative delivery systems
• Comprehensive recycling
• A ban on waste incineration
• Comprehensive composting or biodigestion of organic materials
• Citizen and worker participation
• Policies, regulations, incentives, and financing structures to support these systems