A statement from Zero Waste Ithaca
Dr. Roberto Cavallo, a leading figure in the international zero waste movement, shared photos from his work in Gaza, where he helped develop waste management and composting projects for refugee camps. These images now stand as a record of what was built —and of the colleagues and communities who are no longer there.
August 24, 2025
Cornell University is one of the most powerful institutions in our region. Its silence in the face of overwhelming war crimes in Gaza — while it partners with military contractors and punishes students who call for peace — is complicity. Other elite universities have shown the same pattern: Columbia, when federal funds were threatened, chose to crack down on protest. Universities are choosing money over principle.
The atrocity in Gaza is staggering: over 61,000 Palestinians killed, millions displaced, food and water weaponized, hospitals destroyed. Israel’s own data showed 83% of war dead are civilians. People are starving because Israel has cut off food and water to Gaza. The United Nations declared famine in Gaza City – the first in the Middle East. Hundreds of aid workers and journalists have been killed. Bombs have left tens of millions of tons of carcinogenic debris, destroying farmlands and water supplies. In the first four months, Israel’s bombardment generated more carbon emissions than 26 entire countries produce in a year.
These are not isolated tragedies but systematic acts, funded by U.S. tax dollars and shielded by institutional silence.
In Ithaca, the City Council passed a ceasefire resolution, and the County Human Rights Commission raised alarm. A few county legislators supported a resolution – but the Tompkins County Legislature as a body rejected it. That vote will be remembered.
Our federal senators and congressmen have spoken of “humanitarian crises” while voting to send more weapons. Our state representatives have yet to speak at all. Words without action — or silence altogether — amount to complicity.
The genocide in Gaza must be stopped, and every voice of conscience must speak now.
Every additional day, every week, every month that it continues is another day of complicity and our failure.
There is nothing neutral about silence in the face of war crimes. And there is nothing sustainable about genocide. Sustainability is not about recycling bins and branding — it is about protecting life itself.
As a grassroots organization grounded in climate and community resilience, we refuse to separate our work from global injustice. No one is disposable. We will not forget Gaza, and we will not forget those who chose silence.
For the full extended version of this statement, see our Substack post here. For the Ithaca Times‘ publication in Letters to Editor, see here.
Dr. Paul Connett, a renowned scientist and activist in the global zero waste movement, shared the following poem with us in response to our statement. It is a stark reflection on the collapse of human kindness in our time.
The end of human kindness, August 26, 2025
The food thrown away
That could have fed my child
The stone that broke my husband’s head
The fence instead of a gate
The barbed wire
That snakes across the meadow
A new era
No foreign child
In your kindergarten
No music on the gramophone
Trees made of gold
Produce no leaves
You can’t quench your thirst
From a stolen cup
Which family
Wants to live in this world?
Paul Connett