By Yvette Ahenkorah, 2026 Africa Zero Waste Academy Participant
I came to the GAIA Africa Zero Waste Academy ready to learn. I expected new knowledge, new ideas and a deeper understanding of what zero waste could look like in our communities. What I did not fully expect was to leave the six-day in-person experience carrying a greater sense of responsibility, not only towards the waste we generate, but towards the people whose lives and livelihoods are deeply connected to it.
There is something about knowledge that changes you when you can no longer separate what you have learnt from what you see around you.
Suddenly, waste is not just the overflowing bin, the plastic on the street or what disappears after collection. You begin to ask where it goes. Who collects it? Who sorts through what we throw away? Who recovers the materials that still have value? Who bears the health and environmental consequences of the systems we have created?
And somewhere within those questions, the people behind our waste systems become impossible to overlook: Waste workers. Who are part of what keeps our communities and cities functioning, yet their contribution can easily disappear from the larger conversation about waste.
For me, the Academy reinforced that we cannot speak meaningfully about a zero waste future without speaking about the people already doing much of the work of recovery, collection, sorting and recycling.
That realisation made zero waste feel less like an environmental concept I was studying and more like a movement I wanted to contribute to.
Because what would a zero waste transition mean if the people already holding parts of our waste systems together are left behind?
Movement building, then, has to be about more than changing where materials go. It must also be about people, dignity, recognition, livelihoods and justice.
Over those six days, learning alongside people committed to changing our relationship with waste reminded me that movements do not always begin with something big. Sometimes they begin with a conversation. With questioning a system we have accepted for too long. With recognising the value in something we once called waste. With listening to those whose livelihoods give them an understanding of these materials that many of us may never have considered.
And perhaps most importantly, movement begins when knowledge moves beyond us.
I have carried that thought with me since the Academy, particularly into my work at AERC-Ghana. As I engage with community-based approaches such as composting and continue exploring circular solutions, I find myself returning to a question that has become increasingly important to me:
How do we turn what we know into action that communities and the people working within our waste systems can experience, own, and sustain?
I am learning that building the zero waste movement is not about arriving in communities with all the answers. It is about listening. It is about recognising existing knowledge and labour.
It is about creating space for communities and waste workers to help shape the solutions that affect them. And it is about ensuring that our pursuit of cleaner communities does not erase the people whose work has helped keep those communities clean.
This is where the experience became deeply personal for me. I may have walked into the Academy seeking knowledge about zero waste, but I walked away thinking more deeply about people. About whose voices are heard when solutions are designed. About whose labour we notice. About the kind of transition we are building, and whether dignity and justice sit at the centre of it.
Six days cannot solve our waste crisis.
Six days cannot address every challenge waste workers face.
But six days can change the questions someone begins to ask.
For me, the question is no longer simply, “How do we achieve zero waste?”
It is also, “How do we build a zero-waste movement where no resource and no person is treated as disposable?”
Perhaps that is where knowledge becomes movement. And where movement becomes action.
Writer’s Bio
Yvette is a youth development and sustainability professional from Ghana passionate about climate action, waste management, and community empowerment. She currently works with Alliance for Empowering Rural Communities, where she supports initiatives focused on inclusion, youth engagement, and equal access for underserved communities. Her interests include urban resilience, circular economy solutions, and empowering young people through environmental sustainability and advocacy.
