Mar 10, 2022
Plant Chicago’s designed hydroponic setup for root vegetables in the Indoor Victory Garden; Image sourced from Plant Chicago
Editor’s note: The following information is derived from an interview between Agritecture and Eric Weber, Circular Economy Project Specialist at Plant Chicago. This post is part of a series of urban agriculture-related interviews conducted by Agritecture’s Director of Business Development, Jeffrey Landau, on his travels to farms around the United States. Follow Jeffrey’s adventure here.
Food waste is a bigger agricultural challenge than we, as consumers, seem to realize.
Image sourced from Plant Chicago
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), a third of the food produced globally, or 1.6 billion tons, is lost or wasted annually.
This is particularly shocking because the United Nations reported that more than 2.3 billion people, or 30% of the global population, lacked year-round access to adequate food in 2020.
In the U.S. alone, the production of lost or wasted food generates the equivalent of 32.6 million cars’ worth of greenhouse gas emissions. It is said to be the single most common material landfilled and incinerated in the U.S. Additionally, according to The Washington Post, the carbon footprint of U.S. food waste is greater than that of the airline industry.
In response to these growing concerns, the USDA and EPA announced the U.S. 2030 Food Loss and Waste Reduction goal.
As the first-ever domestic goal to reduce food loss and waste, it seeks to cut food loss and waste in half by 2030. The EPA states that “by acting on this goal, the U.S. can reduce climate and environmental impacts associated with food loss and waste while improving food security and saving money for families and businesses.”
To meet this goal and reduce national emissions, we need to prevent food waste from being generated in the first place.
Alternatively, we can also rethink agricultural waste as a resource.
Image sourced from Plant Chicago
Circular agriculture, also known as closed-loop agriculture, is a farming method working with nature rather than against it.
According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, It starts with restoring soil fertility. Healthy soil is crucial - it acts as a buffer during extreme weather and limits nitrogen losses to air and water.
To minimize the volume of raw materials, companies will upcycle products from one chain as feedstocks for another. The goal is to close the loop as locally as possible - whether within a company, at the local level, within a country, or across national borders. For example:
A crop farmer can create ideal conditions to attract beneficial insects to grow potatoes, beets, and wheat to avoid pesticide use.
A greenhouse can produce energy from the company’s own plant waste, such as discarded roots.
A farm can repurpose waste from other industries to create its own substrate blocks for crops to grow.
A city’s residual waste streams can be used for animal feed.
An aquaponics farm can take the would-be waste output of highly nutrient water and deliver it directly to plants, cleaning it and reducing the dependence on added fertilizer.
Plant Chicago is one of these organizations “working to make our cities healthier and more efficient by developing and sharing the most innovative methods for sustainable food production, energy conservation, and material reuse.”
Plant Chicago’s Summer intern harvesting lettuce from Plant Chicago’s raised beds; Image sourced from Plant Chicago
Joining in 2012, Circular Economy Project Specialist, Eric Weber, shares that "Plant Chicago was founded in 2011, and was originally providing the education and outreach around 'The Plant', a group of co-located food businesses on the Southwest side of Chicago."
In late 2019, Plant Chicago relocated to the old Chicago Fire Department firehouse, just down the street from their original location.
The nonprofit hosts shared-use indoor growing spaces for plants and fungi, alongside maker spaces to bring Chicago-area small businesses together to cultivate local circular economies. These tenants use one another’s byproducts - over 90% is reused, repurposed, composted, or recycled.
Weber adds that through these means, the team aims to “cultivate local circular economies. We envision a paradigm shift in production, consumption, and waste driven at the local level, generating equity and economic opportunity for all residents.”
The Plant’s main program, the Circular Economy Leaders Network (CELN), is a yearly cohort of small businesses. It helps established small businesses, early-stage entrepreneurs, home-based businesses, and independent contractors accomplish various sustainability goals.
Plant Chicago collaborated with Ottilia to help them reach their goal of offering 2 products via a bulk bin system at their brick and mortar, reducing their packaging waste through a refill model; Image sourced from Plant Chicago
These businesses work to grow “media alternatives, compostable packaging sourcing, or in the case of 2021, helping a number of members adapt their offerings to a package-free model. We host dozens of interns each year, high school age through post-grad. Some of these students will work with CELN to facilitate waste audits or work on other business goals, while others help facilitate the running of our farmer's market or pursue individual projects.”
The intention for this physical space is “to accomplish building decarbonization and other infrastructure-centric energy efficiency goals like neighborhood EV charging, solar energy, anaerobic digestion, geothermal HVAC, etc.”
The shared-use indoor growing space, called the Indoor Victory Garden, enhances this mission. “This space will be able to support up to 30 individuals, families, or small businesses in expanding their growing knowledge and skills in a low-risk, sliding-scale, collaborative environment.”
Of the 40,000 pounds of material yielded per month, 40% is finished products and 60% is byproducts.
Plant Chicago collaborated with Bee-utiful Honey & Candles; Image sourced from Plant Chicago
With their hands-on STEM education programs for schools, a year-round farmers market, and collaborative research projects with small businesses and local research institutions, Plant Chicago is able to both educate and expand their reach.
With his knowledge and experience of living creatures and controlled environment life support technology to explore reusing energy and waste, Weber greatly values educational programming. He shares that their “education programming covers topics from hands-on activities about aquaponics or vermicomposting all the way to more theoretical exercises focusing on the concept of a circular economy itself. We also regularly work with small groups or entire classes from local universities as a partner or real-world research subject for things like product development or life cycle analyses.”
The organization’s year-round farmer’s market directly supports and connects local growers and artisans and increases access to healthy foods. The market also offers “food scrap collection for residents, the only location in the city to do so for free. We also host a variety of workshops led by partner organizations and neighbors, as well as swap events for plants, tools, puzzles, etc., and repair events for things like clothing and small appliances, furniture, and bikes.”
