This June 2022, MEF and GAIA are back with Zero Waste Academy. The course successfully taught participants last year about Zero Waste and other related topics online. This year, participants will be able to learn those topics with the blended learning platform of virtual and face-to-face interactions.
The Zero Waste Academy is an immersive training course designed to give you the tools to implement a Zero Waste program in your respective cities and communities. Designed by GAIA and Mother Earth Foundation, the course covers a mix of lectures (What is Zero Waste, waste management laws in the Philippines, incineration as a false solution), hands-on exercises (composting techniques, waste assessment and brand audit, community profiling), and writing sessions (preparing a solid waste management plan, designing collection routes). It is especially designed for project implementers and key stakeholders.
The contents of this course are based on Mother Earth Foundation’s 10 Steps in Establishing a Community Ecological Solid Waste Management Program. Their program aims to streamline the process of implementing the Philippines’ Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000, also known as Republic Act 9003, which was developed specifically to assist local governments in enforcing their community waste management programs. Thus, this course and the examples used will be grounded on the Philippine context.
MEF and GAIA made the course a mix of online and in-person learning. Participation in the Zero Waste Academy from May to July 2022 opens unlimited access to learning modules and curated resource materials on the basics of how to implement a Zero Waste program. There are pre-recorded video lectures, virtual study tours, step-by-step infographics, and live workshops.
GAIA and its Asia Pacific members have been organizing Zero Waste Academies since 2017. Read more about them here:
Photo Credit: MEF
The very first Zero Waste Academy took place from May 30-June 13, 2017 in Malabon City, Metro Manila. This Academy was attended by around 16 participants from GAIA partners in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and the Philippines who all went on to begin their Zero Waste City model-building in their respective communities.
Photo Credit: Paula de Castro
The second Zero Waste Academy, which was done last July 18-28, 2018 in Dumaguete City, was organized by Mother Earth Foundation and GAIA, in partnership with War on Waste-Break Free From Plastic-Negros Oriental. WOW-BFFP-Negros Oriental is a Dumaguete City-based GAIA member that was in the beginning of their own Zero Waste program implementation in the city. The participants of this second Academy were made up of local leaders in and from surrounding areas of Dumaguete City.
Photo Credit: GAIA AP
The third Zero Waste Academy gathered 25 GAIA members from all over the globe in Quezon City, Philippines, from November 27-December 6, 2018, where they learned all about the Zero Waste program by visiting model sites around Metro Manila.
Photo Credit: Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance
Da Nang, Vietnam, became the venue of the first Zero Waste Academy conducted outside of the Philippines, and the fourth Academy organized by Mother Earth Foundation and GAIA in total. This Academy was executed in partnership with the Vietnam Zero Waste Alliance and the Center for Consultancy on Sustainable Development (C4SD), an NGO assisting the city of Da Nang in implementing a Zero Waste program. This was attended by representatives from various Vietnam-based environmental NGOs and government officials from Da Nang.
Photo Credit: YPBB
Bandung is the fifth city to host the Zero Waste Academy, and this time as a collaboration between GAIA and YPBB, funded by USAID. This Zero Waste Academy took place from 29 June – 9 July 2019 in Bandung and Cimahi, Indonesia. The participants were made up of project officers from Environmental NGOs and representatives of government agencies from Bandung, Bandung Regency, Cimahi, Denpasar, Gresik, Surabaya, Medan, and Thousand Islands.
Mother Earth Foundation (MEF) is a non-stock, non-profit organization actively engaged in addressing waste and toxic pollution, climate change, and other health and environmental justice issues. It is best known for its advocacy of Zero Waste through the systematic reduction and proper management of waste.
Since its founding in 1998, MEF has waged a nationwide campaign to train communities, schools, barangays (the smallest government unit), cities and municipalities on how to reduce and manage waste so that it brings no harm to public health or the environment and does not exacerbate climate change.
MEF helps local governments implement Republic Act 9003, or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000. Many of the communities and LGUs the MEF has trained have gained recognition as models of ecological waste management, winning various national, regional and distinct awards. Read more at www.motherearthphil.org.
The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) is a worldwide alliance of more than 800 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries whose ultimate vision is a just, toxic-free world without incineration.
GAIA has been promoting Zero Waste as a more superior solution to resource management for cities. Zero Waste is an innovative approach to the use of our resources which ensures resource efficiency, resource recovery, and protection of scarce natural resources. It redesigns the unsustainable “business-as-usual” one-way, linear industrial system into a circular system that minimizes unnecessary extraction and consumption, reduces waste, and ensures that products and materials are reused or recycled back into nature or into the market. By pursuing Zero Waste, cities are likely to spend less in their solid waste management costs; provide better livelihood conditions for waste workers; and prevent waste from being brought to end-of-pipe disposal facilities or worse, released into the environment. Read more about GAIA at www.no-burn.org, and learn more about our Zero Waste work at www.zerowasteworld.org.