FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 14, 2025
New Orleans, LA — As world leaders meet at COP30 to address the global climate crisis, community leaders on the frontlines of pollution gathered in one of its most visible epicenters. Less than an hour from Louisiana’s notorious “Cancer Alley,” thirteen grassroots organizations from over a dozen states across the United States convened in New Orleans last month to deepen collaboration, political analysis, and shared strategy on landfill methane as part of GAIA’s Methane Reduction and Environmental Justice Cohort.
With an investment from the Global Methane Hub, GAIA regranted $675,000 to grassroots organizations advancing community-led strategies to reduce methane emissions from the waste sector, one of the most significant yet overlooked drivers of climate change. Cohort members are proving that effective, equitable climate action begins at the local level through initiatives such as composting, landfill monitoring, food waste prevention, and zero waste policy advocacy.
“The convening created an opportunity to bring the cohort together to deepen connections and strengthen alignment within the program. We saw it as critical to host this space in the Gulf Coast Region, as we recognize the interconnectedness of our landfill methane fights and wider environmental injustices that have devastated these communities for generations,” said Marcel Howard, U.S. & Canada Zero Waste Program Manager at GAIA. “By prioritizing the building of solidarity across the supply chain, we — as a movement — gain more power and traction to fight against the very industries working to destroy our communities.”
The convening took place just an hour from “Cancer Alley,” an 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that hosts roughly 200 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, which produce a quarter of the nation’s petrochemical products. The cohort visited the region to learn from local leaders confronting generations of industrial pollution and environmental racism.
Participants were welcomed by The Descendants Project at the Woodland Plantation in St. John the Baptist Parish, where efforts to transform a former plantation into a museum and community space highlight the enduring link between plantation economies and today’s petrochemical industry. The visit highlighted the connection between waste, plastic, and pollution — from the extraction of fossil fuels used to make plastics to the methane emissions from landfills, where those plastics often end up.
According to the EPA, landfills accounted for 17.1% of all methane emissions in the country, with food waste accounting for an estimated 58% of fugitive methane emissions (FME). Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas and short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP), with 82.5 times the warming potential of CO₂ over a 20-year period. Even modest improvements in organic waste collection and composting can reduce landfill methane emissions by more than 60 percent.
Across the country, GAIA’s cohort members are implementing on-the-ground solutions that reduce methane and build community power in several states.
“Connecting with other members of the GAIA Cohort to reduce methane created a sense of solidarity and connection that helps sustain this work. I am bringing back lessons to the communities we support in organizing across the northeast,” said Eva Westheimer, Northern Region Lead Organizer at Slingshot.
As the climate crisis accelerates, the work of these grassroots organizations demonstrates that the path forward is not only possible, it is already being paved by the people most affected. While global leaders debate how to curb methane, these community-based organizations are already demonstrating that a just, zero waste future is possible and underway, and it is rooted in justice and love for our communities.
“Being kind and thoughtful to this planet should be as intentional as being mean to it,” said Gi-Gi Hagan-Brown, resident and member of Concerned Citizens of Waggaman, Louisiana.
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GAIA is a worldwide alliance of more than 1,000 grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations, and individuals in over 90 countries. With our work, we aim to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. We envision a just, zero waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped.
Press contact:
María Guillén, Communications & Network Development Manager, U.S. & Canada
mariaguillen@no-burn.org
