Kaʻū Youth Are Leading the Zero Waste Movement—Help Them Keep Going!

Due to the freeze in funding for federal grants, our Hawai’i youth-led, Clean Stream Campaign and Waste-to-Wealth Initiative program in Ka'u has been suspended pending further review. In January of last year, Recycle Hawai'i, in partnership with the Ka'u Global Learning Lab received a 3-year, $1.5 Million EPA Recycling Education & Outreach grant. Over the past 10 months student participants in the program, turned Zero Waste Advocates and part-time employees of Recycle Hawaii, have made a significant contribution to their community through their efforts to divert cafeteria waste, stage community collection events, transform waste cardboard into valuable agricultural inputs, and provide waste audit and consulting services for local events and businesses. Through the formation of their own company, Malama Aina Compostables, these students have shown how wasted resources can be used to build wealth and created a model that can be shared with schools and communities across the islands and throughout the nation.