Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of Zero Waste Asia websites, microsites, and tools, including contributing entries, endorsing or flagging community content, and creating an account. By using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Notice and Community Guidelines.

Zero Waste Asia is a GAIA Asia Pacific and the Asia Home of Solutions Collective initiative that aggregates and visualizes zero waste knowledge from members and the public. “We,” “our,” and “us” refer to the operators of the platform. The platform may exercise editorial discretion to prioritize community safety and data integrity; labels and scores are community signals and not guarantees.

• You must create an account to contribute, endorse, or flag content.
• Roles vs user types:
  • Roles control admin access and are limited to Admin and Super Admin.
  • User types show on the frontend: Registered or Verified by Organization. Verified status is tied to an approved organization and does not grant admin access.
• You are responsible for the security of your account. Use a strong password. Enable 2‑factor authentication if available.
• You must be legally able to consent to these Terms under your local law. If you are under 18, you represent that you have parental or guardian consent.

• “Verified by <Org>” badges indicate that an account has been validated as belonging to a listed organization.
• A badge is informational. It is not an endorsement by Zero Waste Asia of any statement, person, or organization.
• We may revoke or suspend verification if we cannot validate affiliation or if we detect abuse.

“Content” means any material you submit, including resource listings, directory entries, text, data, images, maps, or attachments.

• You keep your rights. You retain ownership of your Content.
• License to us. You grant us a worldwide, non‑exclusive, royalty‑free license to host, cache, index, display, adapt for formatting, and distribute your Content through the Service and our data tools. This license ends when you remove your Content, except for copies needed for backups, audits, or where your Content has been combined into aggregated datasets that are not reasonably separable.
• Open licensing option (recommended): You may choose to release your contributions under a Creative Commons license such as CC BY 4.0 so that members can reuse with attribution. If enabled in the submission form, your selection will apply to that item.
• Your responsibility. You confirm that you have the rights to submit the Content and that it does not violate third‑party rights, confidentiality obligations, or applicable law.

• Endorse and flag: Both Registered and Verified users can endorse entries they believe are accurate and in scope, or flag entries they believe are inaccurate, spam, unsafe, or out of scope.
• Status labels: Items may display as Unverified, Community‑Verified, Verified by Organization, or Staff‑Verified. These labels are signals, not guarantees.
• Admin decisions: Admins may soft‑lock, hide, edit for formatting, request changes, merge duplicates, or remove content to protect users and data quality.
• No admin access for public users: Only Admin and Super Admin accounts can access the Admin interface.

You agree not to:

• Upload malware, perform scraping at a rate that harms the Service, attempt unauthorized access, or test security without permission.
• Submit personal data of other people unless you have consent or a clear legal basis. Remove or anonymize sensitive details by default.
• Post disinformation, doxxing, threats, or hate content.
• Submit or link to illegal content, including content that violates intellectual property or privacy laws.

• We apply data minimization, access control, and audit logging. We strive to comply with applicable laws, including the Philippines’ Data Privacy Act and Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law, as implemented.
• Do not upload government IDs, exact home addresses of private individuals, or other sensitive personal data. Use generalized locations or organizational contacts.
• Field contributors should avoid publishing details that could endanger communities, such as precise locations of vulnerable groups or facilities without consent.

See the Privacy Notice for full details.

We may use third‑party services for hosting, analytics, maps, forms, email, and file storage. Your use of those services may be subject to their terms. We will only integrate services that meet our security and privacy standards.

If you discover a security issue, email us immediately at [email protected] with enough detail to reproduce the problem. Please avoid accessing other users’ data, avoid service disruption, and give us a reasonable time to fix the issue before public disclosure.

• Report flow: Use the flag function on the item page or email [email protected] with the URL and reason.
• We may remove or restrict content at our discretion to comply with law, protect users, or preserve data quality.
• If your content is removed, we will try to notify you and provide a reason unless legally restricted.

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available.” We may change features, set limits, or stop the Service. We will try to give reasonable notice of material changes where possible.

• The Service aggregates information contributed by many parties. We do not guarantee accuracy, completeness, or fitness for a particular purpose.
• Analyses, maps, and visualizations may contain errors or be incomplete. Always verify with primary sources before relying on them for decisions.
• Information and tools on the Service are provided for general informational and educational purposes only and do not constitute professional or legal advice.

To the extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, goodwill, or other intangible losses arising from your use of the Service.

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate access if you violate these Terms or if needed for security, legal, or operational reasons. Certain clauses survive termination, including licenses for already published datasets, disclaimers, and limitations of liability.

These Terms will be governed by applicable law where the Service is operated and where you reside. For users in the Philippines, Philippine law applies on a non‑exclusive basis. For users in Indonesia, Indonesian law applies on a non‑exclusive basis. Disputes may be brought in competent courts where we are domiciled or where you reside. Mandatory consumer protection or data protection rights in your country still apply.

For users in Indonesia, a Bahasa Indonesia version of these Terms will be made available; in case of discrepancy, the Bahasa Indonesia consumer‑facing version will prevail for Indonesian consumers.

We may update these Terms. We will post the new date at the top and, for material changes, notify you through the Service or by email. Continued use after changes means you accept the updated Terms.

• General: [email protected]
• Privacy, Reports and other concerns: [email protected]