MISSION
No Waste Louisiana is an alliance dedicated to bringing waste prevention practices and policies to its local chapters around the state of Louisiana. Together, we can move Louisiana away from the landfill while protecting our neighborhoods, bayous, and parks from litter and pollution. We center economic, social, and racial justice in all aspects of our work, and we value accountability in and with our communities.
No Waste Louisiana is keenly aware of how settler colonialism and extractivism have perpetuated genocide, both of Native peoples and of the enslaved peoples forcibly removed from African native lands to Louisiana and the South to work the land for the monetary benefit of violent white people. We are actively working to dismantle those systems of power in the way we do our work and organizing.
Across South Louisiana, where the majority of our work is done, we owe a massive debt to the Native peoples of the United Houma, Chitimacha, Chahta Yakni (Choctaw), Atakapa Ishak, and Natchez Nations, likely among others.
Why waste?
Louisiana is at the nexus of a waste supply chain that is harmful and expensive. Much of our state’s economy is dependent on the extraction of oil and natural gas and the production of petrochemicals. Those industries provide our communities with jobs, but they also release emissions into the air, water, and soil that are making us sick, creating tragedies like “Cancer Alley”. Our daily lives function around the products of those economies: plastic, paper, and other throwaway materials. That is not without harm: research is showing that packaging releases potentially toxic chemicals into our food and water, correlating with the incidence of attention deficit disorders, hormone-related diseases, and even obesity - a common problem in Louisiana. You can hardly make it through a day or even a whole meal in Louisiana without having to throw away pieces of plastic.
HISTORY
No Waste Louisiana formed after a New Orleans based group made a splash in both city and state legislation. Advocates and leaders from Lafayette reached out to the original group wanting to set up a similar organization there. We realized immediately that the two community organizations could be more impactful with a state-level parent organization, and joined forces to bring the message of ‘zero waste’ across the State of Louisiana. We are now a state-level 501(c)3 sustainability organization, that assists community leaders with starting local chapters, and developing a zero-waste advocacy program, anywhere in our state!
It is our belief that communities should fight for zero-waste in ways that work best for them. We therefore do not set a specific agenda for subchapters; we provide support, guidelines, and toolkits to boost efforts around a common goal. We are the people of Louisiana, fighting for a cleaner, more sustainable state, and we look forward to our communities moving away from landfills and pollution.
