UK filmmaker Candida Brady's documentary Trashed, featuring actor Jeremy Irons looks at the growing global crisis of trash, highlighting how human health and the environment are threatened by the pollution from burning and discarding waste. Trashed will receive a special screening at the Cannes film festival, which runs from May 16-27.

GAIA’s first decade ended in December 2010—and we spent 2011 putting together stories and images to share a snapshot of the alliance’s collective work. GAIA’s values include taking the time to appreciate one another and to celebrate our success and work together. We hope this report, “GAIA 10: 10 Years of Community Action for Zero Waste Solutions,” will be an opportunity for collective reflection and celebration.

Once again, the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers and Allies participated in the annual UN Climate Summit (COP17) and related events in Durban, South Africa, which gathered politicians, private sector investors, NGOs, and social movements from all over the world to discuss and agree on solutions to stop climate change.

As the Kyoto Protocol’s Conference of the Parties (also known as the Durban COP 17) draws closer, we will encounter even more frequent public relations blasts than witnessed in the same International Convention Centre district a decade ago, before the World Conference Against Racism in 2001, and again last year during the soccer World Cup.

Copenhagen, 7 December 2009 – Fifteen million people worldwide make a living from waste picking. They collect, sort, clean and in some cases, process these recyclables, returning them to industry as an inexpensive and low-carbon raw material. Wastepickers are incredibly efficient recyclers – and can achieve recycling rates higher than 80%. Their recycling work reduces emissions up to 25 times more than incineration does. Wastepickers significantly reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions through recycling rates, and could further reduce emissions given proper support.