The Plastic Bag Store may appear to be any other storefront grocery; however, the items found here are all created from trash picked up off of New York City’s streets. Inside, you'll find your healthy and hearty kale made from L.L. Bean delivery bags, oranges made from thrown away Toys "R" Us bags, some “Bagarino” frozen pizza, and "Bag and Jerry's” Ice Cream. You'll even find some of your favorite magazines like “Bag Appétit” and “Bagmopolitan.”
Do you have a “broken” pile or box in your home? You know, those things that need to be glued, screwed or otherwise mended? Clothes needing mending collect near my sewing box, which I store in a side table near our sofa. Things that need to be glued or reattached usually end up in our dining room, where we have enough space to work. But sometimes you need the experts. Who do you call? Next time, try bringing your broken treasure to the Oak Park Repair Café at Fox Park. Not only will you stand a good chance of getting your item fixed for free, but you just may come home with new skills and even a new friend.
Green Era’s current project is a great model of the circular economy because it involves diverting inedible food waste from landfills and, via a process called anaerobic digestion, producing clean, renewable energy as well as nutrient-rich soil, which will then be used to expand fresh local food production. All this will occur on a vacant, brownfield site in South Chicago, in an area with an urgent need for cleanup and economic development.
In August 2020, after a yearlong competition, Green Era, part of the Always Growing Auburn Gresham team, won the $10 million Chicago Prize to develop their vision of a healthy lifestyle hub and renewable energy and urban farming campus. In addition, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a $2 million investment from the state’s Rebuild Illinois program to fill the final funding gap for the Green Era Renewable Energy & Urban Farming Campus.
The first-ever Virtual Movie Club Night kicked off on July 15 with a discussion of the documentary “The Ants and the Grasshopper,” directed by Raj Patel and Zac Piper. Exclusively for One Earth Collective Members (membership starts at $25 annually), the Virtual Movie Club will meet regularly to analyze environmental films, provide like-minded community, and promote change. New members are welcome to join at any time.
Q: And you’d like to see this [circular economic] model applied on both a local and a global level?
A: Yes. Rheaply’s vision is to make the world’s resources visible, easily transferable, and more valuable in our global economy. Closer to home, the Circular Chicago Coalition is bringing together 16 partners, including Rheaply and Plant Chicago, with the intention of seeding a circular city on the south and west sides, asking communities of color what they want rather than prescribing solutions. So we are looking at the city of Chicago and asking how we can eliminate waste within an urban environment, how we can transform the city into an efficient resource-sharing hub. For example, how do we connect nonprofits to larger companies, thereby creating loops for assets?
Keeping food waste out of landfills via composting is a perfect example of how the circular economy can work. Following is a list of Chicagoland composting resources recommended by Jonathan Pereira of Plant Chicago. For those outside of Illinois, search for similar resources in your area to get involved.
Q: How has the past year—the pandemic year—affected your work and the work of those you partner with?
A: Growers and food companies that had been selling to restaurants had to go more to a retail model or not exist. After the lockdown began and Illinois was put under a shelter-in-place order, Plant Chicago helped farmers pivot toward online sales. And, despite the challenges, we re-launched the farmers market in Davis Square Park, opened our year-round marketplace, offered subsidized local food boxes, piloted a shared-use indoor victory garden, and began accepting food scraps for composting from neighbors. We store the food scraps on site for Urban Canopy to haul away. We’re just now transitioning back into working in person, and we interact with the public a lot, so we’re still masking and probably will be for a while.
A few weeks after much of the world locked down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the environmental picture looked pretty rosy. Automobile traffic plummeted, causing a big drop in emissions, and images from NASA showed a dramatic drop in air pollution.
For environmentalists everywhere, this was good news. Sadly, it was too good to last.
Picture the upcoming holiday season and all the laden tables that surround it. How can we become more mindful about food--buying only what we need, using what we buy, and avoiding food waste?
To address this question, the Village of Oak Park has proclaimed the week of November 3, 2019, Food Waste Awareness Week, rallying citizens, businesses, government agencies, and other organizations to become more environmentally responsible with regard to food.
This summer households in Oak Park & River Forest tried living plastic-free – or close to it – for 30 days or more as part of the Sally Stovall Plastic-Free/Low-Plastic Summer Challenge. Named in memory of Sally Stovall, who was co-founder of Green Community Connections, this contest helped our community develop new ideas and habits that can put us on a path to a greener way of life.
Here are some takeaways from the winners of the Challenge. Give them a try. Let us know what your favorite plastic-busting tips are. Keep the conversation going on our Facebook and Instagram pages.
