Zero Waste Hawai’i Island

Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island’s mission is to connect diverse Hawaiʻi Island communities to support equitable systems redesign and policy change to achieve zero waste. ZWHI began in 2019 as a community group, hosting monthly meetings and doing community outreach. They grew to address Hawaiʻi Island’s waste problem by working to reduce packaging waste through policy and systems change. ZWHI works closely with cultural advisement to engage the Kumu Honua Mauli Ola’s Honua ʻEkolu framework to impact change in the home, the larger community, and the global community. Their approach to shifting away from a single-use waste culture is to model systems of waste reduction that are grounded in Hawaiian value systems of Kanaka,`Āina, Akua Connections  (humankind, land, and spirit) – recalling the ancient relationship between land and humanity as a zero waste system. In 2022, ZWHI launched NO POHŌ, a pilot project to reuse refillable glass beverage bottles with The Locavore Store in Hilo. Since Fall 2022, ZWHI has partnered with the non-profit Perpetual to work with county government, businesses, and Native Hawaiian communities to design a community-based reusable foodware program in Hilo.