How to organize your community for zero waste, according to experienced activists
Much of GAIA’s work focuses on closing incinerators and preventing the construction of new ones. But such successes don’t end waste streams; they demand zero waste solutions. These are systems that both cut down on the production of waste and divert what remains into composting, reuse, and recycling.
Zero waste efforts are already a reality in municipalities across the world and, as in the case of the Philippines, entire countries. Expanding them doesn’t happen out of the benevolence of governments, though. It happens when communities most affected by the toxic final destinations of waste — incinerators and landfills — organize to demand environmental justice.
On October 14, GAIA US/Canada invited experienced zero waste community organizers to share insights from their real-world campaigns, in a conversation that built off GAIA’s Zero Waste Masterplan for Community Organizers. Shashawnda Campbell of the South Baltimore Community Land Trust was joined by Gabrielle Houston and Erin Zipman of Brookhaven Landfill Action and Remediation Group (BLARG) for a conversation moderated by GAIA’s Aditi Varshneya, herself an experienced community organizer. The full session is available to view on YouTube.
In Baltimore, moving toward zero waste first meant blocking the proposed construction of what would have been the largest incinerator in the U.S., just a mile from where Campbell attended high school. High asthma rates have long plagued the neighborhood, which is predominantly Black, stemming from the toxic emissions of the nearby BRESCO incinerator.
When that campaign succeeded, Campbell and her fellow organizers turned to the BRESCO incinerator and undertook a strategy called Starve the Beast, which closes incinerators by depriving them of the waste they need to operate. Although they presented a comprehensive zero waste plan for Baltimore, the city still re-signed a 10-year contract with BRESCO’s operator. “It was a big loss for our community, so we started doing tactical conversations to recognize it as a loss–but not the end,” Campbell said. “We had a good base, but it’s never enough until every resident in a city has a say in this movement.”
Growing their base into a citywide movement required both outreach and education. SBCLT developed a slideshow presentation tying Baltimore’s health disparities to the existing waste management system, and explained how zero waste would change those outcomes. They began hosting 5-session “train a trainer” events, in which community members learned how to share the presentation with their neighbors and other community organizations, first by practicing it, and then reaching out to local groups to offer it.
Rather than presenting SBCLT as the sole expert on the issue, though, collaboration was built into the sessions. “We made the presentation, but we wanted people to tailor it and talk about it in their own way,” Campbell said. “We asked them, Hey, what’s missing, what needs to change?” This flexibility allowed the message to spread farther and more effectively, since community members had agency in how they told it.
Next came community outreach beyond the core organizers. “A lot of groups knew about what we were doing, but didn’t know how to get involved or how it related to what they were doing, said Campbell. “We asked them how it could support their work, too.” By explaining zero waste in terms of health and food justice, job creation, education, and even its benefits for businesses, SBCLT got buy-in and support from community organizations engaged in other work.
The campaign has become so effective that the incinerator’s operator has attempted to offer buyouts to community members in exchange for spreading pro-incineration messages. But, as Campbell said, “You have to just remind people that we can’t sell out our communities.”
SBCLT’s campaign against their local toxic site is relatively new. BLARG’s is the continuation of a decades-long fight to win environmental justice in a neighborhood long impacted by a landfill. The site has faced community resistance since its opening in 1974, when it began polluting surrounding land and groundwater. Although it no longer accepts municipal waste, it now receives toxic ash residues from four incinerators on Long Island. The city earns up to $35 million in net annual revenue from the landfill.
Meanwhile, the cost to city residents is incalculable. According to CDC data, Brookhaven residents near the landfill have the lowest life expectancy on Long Island. “It’s clear that race and racism are the reason the landfill was placed here,” said Houston. It makes sense, then, that BLARG grew out of the anti-racism uprising in the summer of 2020, injecting new energy into the area’s existing organizing.
The city had previously promised to close the landfill in 2014, but BLARG learned that the county instead planned to expand it. BLARG’s “Closed Means Closed!” campaign demands exactly that — the permanent, full closure of the landfill, a transition to zero waste, and remediation of the landfill’s toxic fallout.
BLARG has undertaken a huge diversity of pressure tactics for the campaign, detailed in their comprehensive campaign toolkit: in-person protests; digital birddogging of the town’s conspicuously absent town supervisor, Ed Romaine; mobilizing neighbors to attend town halls that officials often announced with little notice; engaging local media; posting DIY lawn signs to spread awareness of the issue; and postcard campaigns. To reach as much of the community as possible, many elements of the campaign were presented in both English and Spanish.
As the campaign spread, resistance emerged. “Politicians were complaining that we wanted them to close the landfill but didn’t have any solutions,” said Houston. “Well, we came up with the solutions.” BLARG organized a 90-day organics pilot program that, by its end, diverted 1200lbs of organic waste from incineration. They’re now undertaking a residential waste audit, which Houston called “a powerful way to gather the information that will be crucial in our effort to move toward zero waste.”
In an usual turn, BLARG has invited both its supporters and opponents to attend their weekly meetings, including a company that’s proposed a pollution-intensifying waste transfer station in the same community, the operator of Long Island’s incinerators, politicians who have supported the landfill, and city departments resistant to zero waste solutions.
It has been a taxing campaign for BLARG’s all-volunteer team. To combat community fatigue, BLARG takes the last Friday off from their weekly meeting, and encourages members to rotate through different roles so they don’t get burned out on more work-intensive responsibilities. “We want folks to be able to rest, so we give them plenty of opportunities to get involved,” said Houston.
Between working against powerful corporate and government interests, mobilizing neighbors who are often managing multiple forms of structural harm, and helping communities imagine a better future not yet actualized, organizing for zero waste can be a daunting task. Fortunately, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel: organizers working in cities across the US and the world are tackling these challenges, making progress, and have a wealth of resources and knowledge to share.
