ECO SPEAKS CLE is where the eco-curious explore Northeast Ohio's unique and thriving environmental community. Each episode delivers thoughtful and informative interviews with local sustainability leaders and offers tips to help listeners connect, learn, and live with the community and planet in mind. ECO SPEAKS CLE is hosted by Diane Bickett and produced by her son-in-law, Greg Rotuno. Diane draws on experiences and relationships developed during her 31-year environmental career to showcase ...
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The Making of "Ripples of Plastic" with Filmmaker Chris Langer
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Send us a text In this episode, Cleveland filmmaker Chris Langer speaks with us speak about his new documentary, Ripples of Plastic, which premiered this year at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival and locally at the Chagrin Falls Documentary Film Fest. Chris is a director, producer, and cinematographer and owns Wonderhouse Films in Cleveland. Ripple…
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Come Along for a Ride with Slow Roll Cleveland
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Send us a text If you need a reason to love Mondays, Slow Roll Cleveland is it. In this episode, Greg and I join Slow Roll Cleveland and several hundred other cyclists for a leisurely-paced bike parade through our urban streets. Slow Roll Cleveland hosts these ten-mile Monday evening rides during warmer months to highlight Cleveland neighborhoods a…
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Choosing a Renewable Energy Supplier with Jenn McMillin of SOPEC
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Send us a text Are you curious about making smarter, greener choices for your electricity supply? In this episode, we speak with Jennifer McMillin with the Sustainable Ohio Public Energy Council (SOPEC). Jenn is SOPEC's Regional Director for Northeast Ohio and provides tips and insights for choosing a 100% renewable energy supplier for your electri…
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Chair-ity: Furnishing a Helping Hand for Youth Graduating Foster Care
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Send us a text "Adulting' is hard, but it's exponentially harder if you are 18 years old and aging out of foster care, alone and without a support system. Here in Cleveland, there's an organization helping to ease the transition by providing donated furniture and household goods to young people who have graduated from foster care and moved into a p…
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Send us a text In this bonus to our conversation with Maria Paparella, Maria shares a personal story of one of the young adults she deeply connected with through her organization Chair-ity. This young adult faced several challenges as she aged out of the foster care system and started life on her own. But with her perseverance, strength, intelligen…
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Send us a text Meet our fellow Cleveland podcaster, Maci Nelson. Maci is a landscape architect, the creator of The Land+Scape Nerd podcast, and a project manager for LAND Studio, a non-profit that connects communities through art and public spaces. In this episode, Maci shares what it's like to design for urban outdoor spaces and the importance of …
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When Life Gives You Styrofoam™... Recycle with Edgewater Surf
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Send us a text Jeff McNaught owns Edgewater Surf, a surf shop in Rocky River, where he sells a variety of new and used paddleboards, surfboards, and windsurfing gear. The shop also serves as an informal community hub for styrofoam™ recycling. Jeff started this program to provide a local recycling option for the bulky EPS (expanded polystyrene) foun…
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Hiking Together since 1919 - The Cleveland Hiking Club
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Send us a text For this episode, I hit the trails with The Cleveland Hiking Club to discover what drives this all-volunteer-run organization with over 1,200 members. The answer? Cool people who are passionate about encouraging and promoting outdoor recreation and making it accessible to anyone who wants to join in. In my interview with the club's C…
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Seeding our Forested Future: The Holden Seed Bank
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Send us a text Holden Forest & Gardens is seeding Ohio's forested future through the Holden Seed Bank at the Holden Arboretum, which will soon celebrate its first anniversary. In this episode, we speak with Seed Bank Manager Kim Lessman about how this "restoration" seed bank works, how she became its manager, and how her work forms the core of new …
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Greenspace: Supporting Health and Resilience in NEO
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Send us a text In this episode, we share the recording from our recent May networking event at Great Lakes Brewing Company. This event featured a discussion about greenspace with three local leaders working on expanding greenspace in our urban core and increasing access and opportunities to experience nature through outdoor recreation, especially f…
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Cleveland Vegan Society Presents VegFest 2024
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Send us a text In this episode, Sunny Simon, President of The Cleveland Vegan Society, joins us to talk about veganism and VegFest 2024, coming to Cleveland's Huntington Convention Center on Saturday, June 22. It's the largest Vegan festival in the Midwest, and it will be delicious, fun, and informative for vegans and non-vegans alike. The Clevelan…
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Mycelia and Mycotecture with Chris Maurer - Redhouse Studio
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Send us a text Can you build a house with mushrooms? You can if you are Chris Maurer, an architect, a mycologist, and a visionary. Chris is the Principal Architect at Redhouse Studio, an architecture firm based in Cleveland, Ohio. Chris and his partners are working to revolutionize how we house ourselves, not with bricks and mortar but with bio-bri…
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Changing Our Perception of the Cuyahoga River with Jim Ridge
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Send us a text Jim Ridge is the founder and executive director of Share the River, a non-profit that promotes Cleveland as a waterfront city and sharing everything that makes it a vibrant and engaging space for residents and visitors. In this episode, Jim talks about his upcoming Blazing Paddles Paddlefest on June 22, where hundreds of recreational…
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Earth Month in Action with the Cleveland Heights Green Team
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Send us a text In this episode, we celebrate Earth Month and the power of local environmental action with the Cleveland Heights Green Team, its co-founder Catalina Wagers, and volunteer Suzanne Zilber. The Cleveland Heights Green Team was founded in 2021 and is very active, with over 300 volunteers. They have a full calendar of events planned for E…
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Cultivating Community with Re:Source Cleveland
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Send us a text In this episode, we welcome returning guests Patrick Kearns with Re:Source Cleveland (formerly Refugee Response) and Michael Bartunek with Ohio City Farm to update us on the exciting developments at Ohio City Farm and with its operator, Re:Source Cleveland. Rachel Ramos, who manages CSA sales for the farm, also joins us to tell us ab…
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Eco Meet CLE: Weaving a Sustainable and Local Textile Economy
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Send us a text In this episode, we bring you the conversation from Eco Meet CLE, a Cleveland sustainability event on February 20 featuring local innovators reinventing northeast Ohio textile production. Rather than today's exploitive and resource-intensive system, we can grow a regional, circular system that fosters economic integrity, ecological s…
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Stormwater Starts at Home: Watershed Stewardship Center
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Send us a text Cleveland Metroparks has always been a preserver and protector of our valleys and the waters that run through them. In 2013, it opened the Watershed Stewardship Center in Parma's West Creek Reservation with a mission to enhance and protect our urban watersheds through scientific discovery, education, and sustainable actions. In this …
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Poop Jokes and the Art of Connecting: John Gonzalez, NEORSD
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Send us a text Northeast Ohio can be proud of its sewer district, not only for the skill with which it manages our wastewater and protects our water resources but also for the skill with which it connects with the public, especially its Twitter followers. How did the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District amass more than 60,000 die-hard Twitter fol…
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Send us a text Meet Victoria Avi, owner of Venture Forward Strategies. Victoria has many rich stories and insights from her 17-year sustainability career and her personal life. Victoria immigrated to Cleveland from Azerbaijan when she was just 16 and navigated language, high school, and finally college, where she found her passions for graphic desi…
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Send us a text On December 21, 2021, Greg and I launched the first episode of Eco Speaks CLE to elevate and connect the greater Cleveland environmental community by speaking with those doing inspiring and impactful work. Forty-seven episodes later, as we celebrate two years of Eco Speaks CLE, we are grateful to each guest and each listener. You hav…
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Behind the Scenes at MedWish International with Britta Latz
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Send us a text Medwish International in Cleveland, Ohio, has been making a world of difference since 1993 by recovering, repurposing, and redistributing surplus medical supplies around the globe. This urgently needed humanitarian aid also helps the environment by keeping life-saving resources out of landfills. In this episode, we speak with Executi…
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Send us a text We all love a good find at a vintage store and have done our fair share of donating or selling stuff we no longer want. These sustainable actions fuel a booming industry called the secondary market for consumer goods. But how much do we know about the consumer resale market? How can we make good decisions about where we donate, and h…
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Send us a text In this episode, we bring you the conversation from Eco Meet CLE, a sustainability event held this October at Great Lakes Brewing Company. The theme of the evening was local food. Over 100 people joined us for food, beer, and a conversation about our local food system with a panel of guests that helped us explore the meaning of the t…
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The Heat Will Kill You First: A Conversation with Author Jeff Goodell
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Send us a text In this episode of Eco Speaks CLE, we speak with New York Times bestselling author and climate journalist Jeff Goodell. Jeff has covered climate change for over two decades at Rolling Stone and is the author of seven books, including his latest book, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death On A Scorched Planet. This is an engagi…
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Saving the Birds with Lights Out Cleveland and LENSC
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Send us a text What if there was a way to save thousands of innocent birds from lethal collisions with our urban glass structures each year? In this episode of EcoSpeak CLE, we head to Lake Erie Nature and Science Center to speak with wildlife rehabilitation specialist Tim Jasinski, one of the founders of Lights Out Cleveland. Tim shares the challe…
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Organic Connects and the Power of the Outdoors
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Send us a text Whitnye Long Jones is a nature enthusiast, community engagement specialist, and environmental justice advocate. She channels these passions and skills into the non-profit she founded in 2017 called Organic Connects. Whitnye runs Organic Connects with her husband, Jefferson Jones, a lifelong outdoor educator, and outdoorsman. Together…
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Send us a text Emily Pek is a flower farmer and the owner of Frayed Knot Farm, a small flower farm in Newbury, Ohio, where she produces beautiful, diverse cut flowers and herbs that share stories, bring joy and support equitable and regenerative farming. In this episode, we visit Emily on her farm and discover her journey to becoming a flower farme…
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The Future of PET Recycling with Evergreen Recycling
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Send us a text Evergreen Recycling, based in Clyde, Ohio, is one of North America's largest recyclers of plastic PET bottles and its mission is to make single-use plastic a thing of the past. With four facilities across North America, Evergreen leads the industry in bottle-to-bottle recycling. In our conversation with Michael Sandoval, Evergreen's …
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Be a Beekeeper with the Greater Cleveland Beekeepers
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Send us a text In this episode, we explore the world of beekeeping with Denzil and Sheila St. Clair. Sheila and Denzil have been happily married and very busy for 52 years, keeping bees, raising children, operating their bee business, and founding the Greater Cleveland Beekeepers Association (GCBA). Greg and I caught up with them on a Wednesday eve…
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Send us a text Eddie Olschanski is on a mission. Five days a week, year-round, Eddie can be seen fishing for trash in his kayak on the Cuyahoga River in the Flats. Outfitted with just a life jacket, a trash grabber, and garbage bags, Eddie and his volunteers have plucked over 50,000 lbs of trash from the shipping canal, the last place the trash can…
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Send us a text Curious about how the water you use every day gets to your tap? If you live in Northeast Ohio, chances are you get some or all of your water from the Cleveland Division of Water and the process of getting it from Lake Erie to you is fascinating. Today is water appreciation day on Eco Speaks CLE and speaking with us is Alex Margeviciu…
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Send us a text In this episode, we hear from a number of Cleveland's sustainability community in this recording from May's Eco Meet CLE event at Great Lakes Brewing Company. The evening featured a community stage where we heard from local environmental organizations about their work and the many ways we can connect and get involved. A lot is happen…
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Helping People Use Bikes - Ohio City Bicycle Co-op
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Send us a text The Ohio City Bicycle Co-Op has been helping people use bikes for over 20 years by imparting skills that encourage riding for fun, fitness, and transportation. Guided by the principles of respect, resourcefulness, and reciprocity, the OCBC's small professional staff and its many skilled volunteers refurbish donated bicycles, teach bi…
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Cleveland Tree Coalition - Reforesting the Forest City
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Send us a text In honor of Arbor Day, we discuss local efforts to reforest the Forest City with the Cleveland Tree Coalition and the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission. Cleveland was once known as the Forest City, but it's not so forested anymore, with less than 18% of tree canopy remaining in the urban core. This tree canopy loss negatively impac…
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Send us a text April is a busy month in the CLE, so we bring you this short Earth Day episode where Diane goes solo and speaks about the first Earth Fest at the Zoo in 1990, what having a sustainability community means, ways to get involved, and what's in store for Eco Speaks CLE. Ways to Connect: Join the Eco Meet CLE 4 Miles 4 Water team Register…
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Send us a text Spring has arrived, and here at Eco Speaks CLE, we are thinking about SOIL. It is fundamental to all life on earth, so it deserves our attention. In this episode, we speak with Nathan Rutz, the Director of Soil for Tilth Soil. Tilth is an outgrowth of Rust Belt Riders, transforming food waste into a family of soil products that nouri…
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BRITE Energy Innovators - Unleashing the Energy Revolution
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Send us a text In this episode, we learn how BRITE Energy Innovators is helping power the future of energy across Ohio by speaking with Jing Lyon, BRITE's Entrepreneur Programs Director, and Joe Rohan, BRITE's Accelerator Program Manager. BRITE Energy Innovators empowers founders to launch energy technology solutions and operates Ohio's only energy…
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Send us a text Meet members of our local sustainability community and hear from local climate leaders in this episode recorded during our second Eco Meet CLE event in February at Great Lakes Brewing Company. First, meet some of the people in the room and then hear from our climate panelists, featuring County Executive Chris Ronayne, Stephen Love wi…
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Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park - Inspiring Use, Preservation and Support
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Send us a text In this episode, we celebrate the national park in our backyard by speaking with Deb Yandala, President and CEO of the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and Donté Gibbs, VP of Community Partnerships. The Conservancy is the non-profit partner of Cuyahoga Valley National Park and its biggest supporter. Its 85 staff work to…
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Send us a text Elena Stachew and Moses Ngong are two young professionals demonstrating the power of youth in action. They lead the Cleveland Hub of Global Shapers. Global Shapers is a diverse community of young people working together to address local, regional, and global challenges through 522 city-based hubs located in 154 countries. In this epi…
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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and REPAIR with Cuyahoga Recycles
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Send us a text In our first episode of 2023, we help you with all your recycling questions and give you options for cleaning out the clutter so you can start your new year off right. Joining us are Beth Biggins-Ramer, the Executive Director of Cuyahoga Recycles, and Matt Walters, the Recycling Programs Coordinator with Cuyahoga Recycles. Hear Beth …
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Creating a Bioregional Textile Community with Rust Belt Fibershed
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Send us a text In this episode, we speak with Jess Boeke. Jess and her twin sister Sarah Pottle, are the co-founders of Rust Belt Fibershed and are growing a bioregional textile community within a 250-mile radius of Cleveland. Imagine sourcing your clothing from a regional fibershed where local fiber farmers, workers, and artisans produce natural c…
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Designing a Circular Fashion Brand with Faan
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Send us a text In this episode, we pull back the curtain on fast fashion with Aaron Jacobson, the creator of faan, a Cleveland-based clothing company. Aaron designs and creates low-waste, locally-made, unisex clothing that supports the philosophy of true circular fashion. Circular fashion is the opposite of fast fashion, which accounts for 10% of g…
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Become a Food Rescue Hero with The Hunger Network
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Send us a text Chelsea Csuhran is the Food Rescue Program Director with the Hunger Network of Greater Cleveland. In this episode, we speak with Chelsea about food rescue and how her organization keeps usable food out of landfills while reducing hunger in our community. This happens with hundreds of volunteers she calls food rescue heroes. Hear how …
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Welcome Home with Humble Design Cleveland
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Send us a text Debbie Eastburn is the director of Humble Design Cleveland, and her motto is "togetherness to end homelessness." She and her team of designers and volunteers create spaces that families, veterans, and kids aging out of foster care can call home. And they do this primarily with second-hand items that people in our community have donat…
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Cleveland Water Alliance and the SMART Lake
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Send us a text Cleveland Water Alliance is making Lake Erie the first SMART Great Lake by harnessing technology to monitor water quality, fuel research, drive innovation, and elevate Cleveland's role in the Blue Economy. Max Herzog is a program manager with Cleveland Water Alliance. In this episode, Max invites us to imagine what it would mean to h…
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ECO MEET CLE Recap with Victoria and Danielle
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Send us a text In this episode, we recap Eco Meet CLE with Victoria Avi and Danielle Doza with Venture Forward Strategies. Danielle and Victoria helped Greg and me organize this meetup for Cleveland's sustainability community on September 20th at Great Lakes Brewing Company. Dan and Pat Conway sponsored the event, along with several other partners.…
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Send us a text Marci Lininger calls monarch butterflies the guardian angels of the pollinator world. By doing good things for monarchs, we also help a myriad of other species that also need our help. This past summer, the monarch was officially designated as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Curious to know more abou…
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Nature Inspired Innovation with Great Lakes Biomimicry
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Send us a text How does nature move liquids? How does nature manage structural forces? How does nature sense motion and temperature? These are some of the questions that the practice of Biomimicry asks when faced with a design challenge. Our guests, Trisha Brown and Carol Thaler are two Biomimicry practitioners that are helping accelerate innovatio…
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Send us a text Upcycle Parts Shop is a creative reuse center in Cleveland’s St. Clair Superior neighborhood. In this episode, we speak with Nicole McGee, the center's scrappy founder and executive director. Since 2014, the shop has diverted over 47 tons of material from landfills while providing the materials for creative inspiration to local artis…
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