Three Hundred and Seventy-Five Incinerators That Were Never Built

Burning municipal waste concentrates dioxins, furans and particulates and requires a guaranteed volume of rubbish for decades, which locks a city out of recycling just as it locks in the emissions. GAIA formed in 2000 from groups already fighting incinerators independently, and now links more than 1,000 member organisations across 100 countries, deliberately built around waste picker organisations rather than over them — the people whose livelihoods disappear when material is burned instead of sorted. It counts more than 375 incinerators prevented or shut down, and over 122 million people now living in cities that have adopted zero waste commitments. It also moves money outward rather than inward, distributing around $2.6 million a year to its member organisations, and takes on the international plastic waste trade that sends rich countries' unsorted scrap to countries expected to burn it.