Updates to WSSD-Zero Waste campaign

Meeting Summary from San Francisco, CA USA
On April 25th, Michelle Gerster from GAIA, Gary Liss our Zero Waste technical adviser, and Marni Rosen from the Jennifer Altman Foundation met with Mr. Desai in San Francisco, California.

This was the Zero Waste Team’s first opportunity to speak face to face with Mr. Desai about the possibility of organizing a “Zero Waste” Earth Summit. Gary discussed how simple it would be to implement a Zero Waste Summit by simply making sure that if just the paper is properly taken care of, it would achieve a diversion rate of 70-80%. In addition, the next step would be to ensure properly disposing of the food waste in a composting facility. Gary introduced the composting facility as a legacy program that the UN could leave behind in Johannesburg following the Summit.

The meeting went very well and Mr. Desai stated that he would provide a formal letter supporting the idea of organizing the WSSD as a Zero Waste event.

Meeting Summary from Pretoria, South Africa
On May 18th, 2002 Muna Lakhani, from EarthLife Africa Johannesburg Branch met with Nitin Desai to follow up on the previous meeting in San Francisco. Nitin Desai reaffirmed that he would write a formal letter of support for the Earthlife Africa / GAIA initiative.