PRACTICAL ZERO WASTE
Community-based Waste Management Model
By Ana Rocha
Abstract
Community-based zero waste models, decentralized and built on the strengths of a community despite the challenges that it faces with solid waste management. The model is based on the assumption that when people are given a good choice they embrace it and that just waste management is only achieved through the combination of social and environmental strategies, that are beneficial to the communities and to the environment. The model also envisions the connection between social movements and climate movements, establishing the clear and neglected relation between waste mismanagement and the climate emergency.
Ana Rocha
Nipe Fagio (TANZANIA)
Ana is Brazilian and has a master’s in business with focus on Business Strategy for Sustainability
and Marketing by FGV-SP. She has been permanently living in Tanzania since July 2010. She is the
Executive Director for Nipe Fagio. Ana has over 15 years’ experience in community engagement
and has lived for 7 years in rural Tanzania catalyzing income security for local communities through
social entrepreneurship programs.
Ana believes that COVID-19 made it mandatory for us to recognize the inequality of the world that
we live in and rethink ourselves as a society, ensuring that we use solidarity to balance historical
gaps and that we provide vulnerable groups with meaningful opportunities. And that we ensure that
social justice walks together with environmental stewardship.
About Nipe Fagio
Nipe Fagio (NF), "give me the broom" in Swahili, is the pioneering environmental and waste
management organization in Tanzania working with government, private sector and civil society in
the pursuit of solutions for solid waste and plastic pollution. Nipe Fagio is currently implementing
the first community based Zero Waste program in East Africa.
Our objective is to turn Tanzania into a replicable example in the pursuit of sustainable
development in East Africa; encouraging the East African community to grow and develop to be a
thriving clean economy supported by a conscious and engaged population.