Organizations Filed Purposes:
GAIAs mission is to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution.
Plastics & Zero Waste Solutions: The refusal of waste plastic imports by many Asian nations drew new attention to this issue. GAIA launched Discarded, a communications campaign that shined a searing spotlight on the plastic waste trade. Media mentions of GAIA spiked, and major media outlets (e.g., Reuters, the BBC, The Guardian, and CNN) covered this work and adopted our messaging. This heightened public pressure on the Basel COP to take action. We supported the strong presence of Break Free From Plastic at the COP, including experts from Indonesia, Malaysia, and India. As a result, plastic was added to the Basel Convention. Exporters must now obtain the consent of receiving countries before shipping most contaminated, mixed, or unrecyclable plastic waste, providing an important tool for countries in the Global South to stop the dumping of unwanted plastic waste. In addition, in the Asia Pacific region, four major cities passed local ordinances inducing single-use plastics bans and ecological solid waste management regulations. GAIA continued to support the development of 10 flagship zero waste cities and developed a series of accessible case studies focused on model building in Asia. These were launched at the International Zero Waste Cities Conference in October 2019 in Malaysia. GAIA also launched a new global microsite (zerowasteworld.org) featuring multi-media stories, case studies, tools, and a blog. In Africa, Tanzania enacted a plastic bag ban as the result of GAIA member advocacy. A delegation of African members worked with national officials to ensure that language calling for plastic reduction was included in the final statement of the African Ministers Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) in November 2019. Zero waste model-building began in earnest in Ghana, South Africa, and Tanzania. GAIA member Zero Zbel in Morocco hosted a Zero Waste Academy, a training for waste practitioners, government officials, and NGO leaders to learn more about establishing zero waste systems in their communities. The South African Waste Pickers Association and groundWork hosted a national gathering of waste pickers to strengthen organizing for zero waste efforts and ensuring these systems value waste pickers with sustainable earnings and safer working conditions. In Latin America, we invested in strengthening the work of the Zero Waste Alliance in Chile, the Brazil Zero Waste Alliance, the Anti-Incineration Coalition in Argentina, and supporting the development of the Ecuador Zero Waste Alliance. We also supported seminars and workshops in several countries, as well as the publication of two books on zero waste policies and workers. Working with our sister organization, Zero Waste Europe, we supported the continued development of the zero waste network in the region. For example, in Croatia three new municipalities signed on to the official Zero Waste Strategy and entered the Zero Waste Europe network of municipalities, and the Croatian island of Zlarin declared itself a plastic-free island. In November 2019, Kiel became the first German municipality committing to zero waste. Portugal approved a national waste management plan that focused on various zero waste strategies and left out funding for waste incineration.
US/Canada: GAIA provided technical and strategic support, resources, and information to members and allies, amplifying their efforts to address pressing local waste issues. GAIA supported groups working to shut down polluting incinerators and advance healthier alternatives in Baltimore, MD; Detroit, MI; Long Beach & Commerce, CA; Minneapolis, MN; Newark, NJ; and Oregon. We partnered with the Tishman Environment & Design Center to release the report US Municipal Solid Waste Incinerators: An Industry in Decline, along with fact sheets on the health impact of waste incineration and plastic pollution & waste incineration. We coordinated the engagement of US zero waste communities around plastics for Break Free From Plastic-U.S., including work to shift deceptive industry narratives about plastic and plastic recycling in the context of America Recycles Day and Earth Day.
Int'l: GAIA uses a movement-building network model that empowers members to build their own capacity, facilitates int'l solidarity in response to local organizing efforts, and coordinates collective research & campaigns around the issues of waste, pollution, climate and environmental justice. We continue to coordinate various int'l and regional listservs, reaching a substantial number of our 800-member network, and continue advancing our member outreach through new platforms to enhance the sharing of member experiences & coordination of cross-regional efforts. We link our members to expert resources for public events and environmental impact reviews. GAIA supports members globally in efforts to protect the environment, public health, and human rights by blocking the construction of incinerators in their communities and shifting political and financial drivers away from dirty energy.
Executives Listed on Filing
Total Salary includes financial earnings, benefits, and all related organization earnings listed on tax filing
| Name | Title | Hours Per Week | Total Salary |
|---|
| Christine Keith | Executive Dir. | 40 | $94,009 |
| Mahyar Sorour | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Michael Gabriel | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Ana Baptista | Director | 1 | $0 |
| Jack Macy | Treasurer | 1 | $0 |
| Sue Chiang | Secretary | 1 | $0 |
| Elizabeth Crowe | President | 2 | $0 |
Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (
public 990 form dataset) from:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202120369349301407_public.xml