A Conversation with Jonathan Pereira
of Plant Chicago
By Susan Messer
After watching the One Earth Film Fest screening of “Closing the Loop,”* a documentary about the circular economy, I wanted to learn more about the subject—especially how my community and I might become part of it.
So I began here, with a definition from the website of Plant Chicago, a local nonprofit with the mission of cultivating local circular economies:
At the facility scale, a circular economy means that conventional waste from one process is re-purposed as inputs for another, creating a circular, closed-loop model of material reuse.
To make it very personal, I translated it this way: (1) Honor the resources that go into the food I eat and the objects that surround me, (2) reduce and, ideally, eliminate waste or even the idea that something is waste, (3) learn everything I can about what use some other person or process might have for the item I am about to discard (and likely send to a landfill), and (4) find that person or process.
Plant Chicago is famous for its indoor, aquaponic farm, using waste from fish to provide nutrition for plants.
To further explore these new ways of thinking and doing, I turned to the three Chicagoland experts who discussed “Closing the Loop” after its OEFF screening. And for this—the first of three articles I will write about Chicagoland’s circular economies—I spoke to Jonathan Pereira, Executive Director, Plant Chicago.
Plant Chicago “Thinks Big,” as stated on their website: “We envision a paradigm shift in production, consumption, and waste driven at the local level, generating equity and economic opportunity for all residents.” Let’s dig into that further.
Q: Jonathan, Plant Chicago comes at the topic of circular economy from so many angles. What do you most want people to know about your organization?
A: One: Our space is in a renovated firehouse in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. It’s an unusual space, and also very welcoming, a place where we can convene people from all over Chicago. We focus on our neighborhood, but we have created programming to be very inclusive.
Second: We focus on the economics behind waste diversion and the connection between waste diversion and environmental work. We want to elevate and support small and local businesses while diverting materials from landfill.
We’re also focused on research—into aquaponic farming, methods of indoor growing, waste auditing in the workplace, and more. And I’m particularly interested in teaching outside the classroom—hosting school field trips in our space to teach students about the science and social value behind our work. Another important focus for us is developing partnerships between Chicago-area small businesses to cultivate local circular economies. For example, Plant Chicago helped establish the Chicago Farmers Market Collective three years ago to help market managers connect and share resources.
Q: How did you get into this work? What is your background?
A: I have a bachelor’s degree in geology and a master’s in educational leadership. As I said, I’m really interested in informal education. I never envisioned myself as an administrator, but I saw the job posting from Plant Chicago, and I thought ‘that kind of sounds like me,’ so I applied, and here I am. I like combining economy and environmental work, figuring out how to engage young people in urban settings in environmental issues.
Q: What do you see as the impact of the pandemic on people’s thinking about environmental issues?
The Urban Canopy collaborates with Plant Chicago at the Davis Square Farmers’ Market and by picking up food scraps for compost.
A: This year has prompted a lot of people to reevaluate their lives and how they go about being both anti-racist and environmentalist, to become aware that you might consider yourself an environmentalist but still be contributing to a destructive system. The pandemic forced awareness, new ways of seeing and doing things.
For example, when you’re working downtown or at an office, you’re creating a waste stream that’s separate from the one at home. When you’re home all the time, you see how much total waste you generate. Plus, all the online ordering generated lots of additional packaging and single-use items. We’re hoping that the lockdowns and awareness regarding waste mixed with anxiety about supply chains offered opportunities to become more aware of one’s impact, to think more about where food comes from, how we obtain it, what we do with it once we have it. But it was actually a great year for Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), because more people were looking for local food. Also, with so many people afraid to shop in grocery stores, a CSA delivery became even more desirable.
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 recording of the One Earth post-film conversation between Jonathan and two other circular economy experts is here: https://www.eventbrite.com/x/closing-the-loop-watch-party-recording-tickets-152453708145
*“Closing the Loop" is available for free on YouTube, so anyone can watch it any time. See below.
This article is part one of a series of three articles on the Circular Economy. Find the other two here:
Article 2: A Conversation with Thomas Fecarotta of Rheaply
Article 3: A Conversation with Jason Feldman of Green Era